EXPLAINING THE VINI ADDICTION....

If people are asking someone which is their fave band on Factory, the main part will answer Joy Division or New Order (some Britpoppers will eventually come up with Happy Mondays) but I think that The Durutti Column have been played most, and so I think that, in my life, they must be more important than Joy Division.
I know that many people already will think it's a shame to say such things even if they have never heard a sole track by them.
You see, being signed on Factory was a godsend, but all bands were somewhere standing in the shadows of New Order or Joy.
Not that Factory-founder Tony Wilson ever wanted this because even if Vini came in at a much later stage, The Durutti Column were Tony's first band...a punkband they were!
The very first recording came out on the Factory-sampler, which also included Joy Division.
The Durutti Column were really a bunch of people that came and went (some even went to Simply Red!) and it was after some nasty words with the not so always gentle Martin Hannett that the band were disbanded and that there was only one member left : Vini Reilly.
The Durutti Column are fronted by Vini Reilly and Bruce Mitchell on drums. But the very first album which got the very realistic title "The return of Durutti Column" was a colloboration between Vini and Martin Hannett.
It was clear that Vini was a genius guitarplayer and you can play as many guitarsolos if you want, if you can sound like Vini then you're in my eyes a real guitarist! This man handles the instrument so perfectly that every touch of his fingers on the strings provokes emotions, mostly in my brains...
On their second album "LC", which is for me their best one, came the introduction of one Bruce Mitchell on the drums and the two never got seperated after.
Despite low sales, Durutti Column were always part of Factory and such things graces the label, many albums followed (all of them little masterpieces) but the funny thing (well, is funny the word to use anyway?) is that Vini had more success on the albums he played as guestmusician.
Many people who swear they have never heard from Vini will know Vini's guitarplaying without knowing it...among the known releases Vini was part of are "Viva hate" by Morrissey, the debutalbum by Anne Clark or in Belgium the early music by Jo Lemaire.
Once Factory came to an end, Durutti Column had a problem too as : who wants to sign a musiclegend from whom nobody buys albums from? Luckily for him, there were always labels around (Les Disques Du Crepuscule) or in a later stage Factory Too (Tony Wilson's attempt to relaunch Factory).
This day the band are a household name for a handful of people, those who know their music cherish it, those who don't ignore it...normally that's the way things are but in such a case it's a true shame....