Four Factory Records
6CD: UK 15 July 2009 (Kooky Records, Kookydisc 027)
Tracklisting
Disc one
The Return of The Durutti Column
Disc Two
LC
Disc Three
Another Setting
Disc Four
Without Mercy
Live Bonus Disc
Messidor - Night Moves, Glasgow 19/02/82
Party - Night Moves, Glasgow 19/02/82
Danny - Night Moves, Glasgow 19/02/82
Mercy Theme - London School of Economics 14/12/84
Mercy Dance - London School of Economics 14/12/84
Prayer - London School of Economics 14/12/84
The Beggar - London School of Economics 14/12/84
The Missing Boy - London School of Economics 14/12/84
For Belgian Friends - Brighton Zap Club 15/12/84
Self Portrait - Brighton Zap Club 15/12/84
Sketch for Summer - Brighton Zap Club 15/12/84
Demo/Studio Bonus Disc
Intervals - Home recording 1978
Katherine - Home recording 1978
Untitled - Home recording 1978
Conduct - Home recording 1978
In D - Issued on second pressing of Return of
The Act Commited - Graveyard Studio demo LC
Portrait for Frazier - Graveyard Studio demo LC
Detail for Paul - Graveyard Studio demo LC
Never Known - Graveyard Studio demo LC
Experiment in Fifth - Graveyard Studio demo LC
Untitled LC demo - Graveyard Studio demo LC
Never Known - Four Track home demo
Mavuchka - released in place of Messidor in some territories on LC
Credits
Albums re-mastered from the original tapes by Keir Stewart.
RETURN OF THE DURUTTI COLUMN All songs written by Vini Reilly. Produced by Martin Hannett. Recorded at Cargo, Rochdale. Engineered by John Brierley. Mixed at Strawberry Studios, Stockport.
LC All songs written by Vini Reilly. Produced by Vini Reilly and Stewart Pickering. Recorded and Mixed at Graveyard Studios, Prestwich. Engineered by Stewart Pickering.
ANOTHER SETTING All songs written by Vini Reilly. Recorded and mixed at Strawberry Studios, Stockport. Engineered by Chris Nagle.
WITHOUT MERCY All songs written by Vini Reilly. Produced by Anthony Wilson and Michael Johnson. Recorded at Strawberry Studios, Stockport. Engineered by Michael Johnson; assisted by Tim Dewey and Nigel Beverley. Mixed at Britannia Row, London.
DEMOS / STUDIO All songs written by Vini Reilly. Compiled and mastered from studio and home demos at Far Heath Studios by Angus Wallace and at Kooky by Phil Cleaver. Thanks to Mike Mitchell.
LIVE All songs written by Vini Reilly. Compiled and mastered from original cassette mixing desk dates at Kooky by Phil Cleaver. Special thanks to Bruce Mitchell for the source material.
Liner notes written, and interviews conducted, by John Cooper. Archival album photography by Carsten Fleck. Designed by Steven Hankinson. / Kooky acknowledgements: Special thanks to Bryn, Iain, John and Simon (the 'kooky thinktank'); Bruce Mitchell and Mike Mitchell for the live and demo material; Oli Wilson for assistance in providing the original masters; Emma and Alison. Extra special thanks to John Cooper, John Cox, Darren Crawford, Steven Hankinson and Kerry Wadsworth for making this happen very well very quickly.
Vini Reilly acknowledgements: Thank you for keeping the ship afloat Mr Bruce Mitchell Esq. (The Gonzo Drum Master), Mr Keir Stewart for enabling Vini to record and producing beyond the call of duty, Brosci (the 5th member of The Durutti Column), all of Bruce's family, all of my family, all of Poppy's family (contributions from Kate and Ruby), Michael Pitrick for hairstyle, Phil Cleaver and Emma, Alex McMurtrie, John Cooper, Gary at Sounds Great, Damian my doctor, Joanne Ingleby (dental care), my harvest mouse (Sa Ding Ding), Mr Anthony H Wilson and extended family, Alan Erasmus, Les Thompson (and Jill), Laurie Laptop, Mark Prendergast (for forthcoming book), John Lennard and Savanna, Howard Sharrock (the great entrepreneur and friend) and Bruce Mitchell most of all - my best friend and the most superb drummer on the planet.
Liner notes [interviews by John Cooper except for Keir Stewart]
John Metcalfe
JC: I was reading some sleeve notes the other day and they weren't my sleevenotes, these were the sleevenotes written by Tony Wilson for the Factory Once reissue of Without Mercy. He described you as "the diminutive but taking no shit Mr Metcalfe whose viola playing became such a part of the next cycle of Durutti work". He describes you as "the arranger" of the brass section.
JM: To some degree that's true, because I was living with Tim Kellett and Rich Henry at the time and was very jealous when they joined Durutti a few months before Without Mercy was made. I was badgering at them to get me in there somehow if Blaine Reininger couldn't do it. So what happened is I went down to Strawberry with them, and I can't even remember what time of year it was, but I seem to remember it was dark when we got there. I think I remember sorting out a few chords for them and sorting out any little bits on intonation but they were really perfectly in tune so that wasn't really the case. But I think I pissed one of the engineers off. It was something to do with the tuning and I might've said "Is your tape machine running at the right speed?" and he looked very put out by that.
JC: Tony Wilson also mentions that he was trying to get Vini to slow down the recording process. Apparently he did slightly but basically it meant it took five days to record instead of three days! Does that fit with your recollections?
JM: To be honest John, my involvement was very minimal with that. I did one session where we turned up to do the brass and it took three, four, five hours... I can't really remember exactly how long but I think it was in the evening. And then I think we buggered off. Because I wasn't part of Durutti then, I was just a very keen Factory fan and was just sort of happy to be in there really, to have met Vini and Tony. But I don't think my involvement was as big as Tony's making out. I can't even remember how many tracks we did. Maybe three or four? Something like that. Maybe Tim, Rich and Merv went in there to do some other stuff. I only remember that one evening. I don't know how I came across but "diminutive and taking no shit", possibly, maybe... that's one way of putting it!
JC: So, what happened between that point and the following tour and you becoming a full-time member of the group?
JM: Well, I badgered Tim, Rich and Merv cos I knew they had these gigs coming up so I said if the violinist (Reininger) can't make it, get me in there. And that's what happened. I think Blaine Reininger had his own band over in America called Tuxedomoon and he was busy with that. I'm not sure what his connection with Vini was but we did meet him when we went to America eventually. But he couldn't do it so Tim said to Vini, look I'm living with this guy who plays violin and viola and he knows his stuff. So I remember I went along for the first rehearsal and it was at Bruce's house and we went in his back room and we started it up. I knew all the tunes because I was a big fan anyway and I remember Vini kinda laughing and saying "Well, you know it all don't you!? We don't really have to rehearse." And that was great. So I was in. If it was an audition, which I suppose it must've been, it went extremely well and I didn't look back really.
JC: And was this possibly one of the last times that The Durutti Column was known to rehearse?
JM: [Laughs] I think we might be rehearsing for the Manchester International Festival for one day. But then again I don't know. Vini was never one for rehearsing because the gigs were one of the brilliant things about him and I learned a hell of a lot from doing them. There was a lot of improvising and once Vini started using sequencers and technology he'd programme loops in and songs would run and as long as he (and we) thought they had legs for that particular moment in a particular show. So that was an interesting process because up until that point I was just "classicalling" away, being in bands and stuff. But in those bands we rehearsed to do the song over and over to make sure it was really tight. And then suddenly I was in a situation where Vini would just say "Oh, it's fine, just play". Of course there were tunes, there were melodies written and things but it kind of got more organised as the shows went on. Of course, over the years I got to know Vini and Bruce very well and to know their style. And that thing developed, when you do a lot of concerts with them, in that you know when they're going to stop and start.
Vini was great, he gave me a lot of free rein to do my own thing as well, which was fantastic. Vini allows my playing of the viola to become a more integrated part of the Durutti sound rather than just sort of being a bit of neo-classical decoration on the top.
JC: I seem to remember Vini saying how you were one of the few classical musicians who he'd ever come across who didn't need sheet music to play.
JM: Well, that's a great compliment and I think part of it was that I was rubbish at practising. When I was at the Northern studying, a lot of the time I was just sort of messing around really. Well, I did do some proper practising obviously but I eventually found that thing of repeating material over and over again to be a bit boring after a while. So I would just sort of mess around and make stuff up. So that was great. It was also good to remember loose structures of songs and just sort of make it up as you went along.
JC: Obviously, the Without Mercy piece does have that cyclical structure, it develops and there are various movements to it.
JM: I think that it's what you were saying about the re-releases to be as they were originally intended on vinyl. That record particularly crystallises that point because it was intended to be a long piece of music. It has motifs, themes that get developed and then get revisited. I thought it was a great record. I thought it really worked from that point of view. And at the time it was quite a brave thing to do.
JC: But we know Vini doesn't see it quite in such a favourable light. But perhaps he doesn't see most of his canon as being something that he wishes to revisit.
JM: I think the important thing about that record is that in some respects it was way ahead of its time. Around then, technology was really starting to make its presence felt. It was what, 1984. So you had a lot of bands with some sort of electronic element. Of course there was Kraftwerk but with the technology becoming more sophisticated and cheap more people could afford it. So there was a lot of purely electronic or rather purely electric music. So, guitars and drums but also with electronic boxes and things. And in the mid-80s there was a real move away from acoustic instruments in pop music. Big plastic snares. Lots of electronic bands like Depeche Mode, those kinda guys, were really at their height because the technology was leading the way and people were really excited by it. And I think at that point, to make a record that embraced the new technology but also included traditional classical acoustic instruments was really interesting. So it went from why are we still using rubbishy old classical violas made from metal and wood when there's all this other stuff going on. But of course, now it's come full circle because there's lots and lots of electronic acts starting to explore the possibilities of acoustic instruments and what those instruments can do acoustically and also when they are treated electronically. So, it may not be one of Vini's favourite records but I think it was quite futuristic in its own way.
JC: Do you see it in any way, looking back, as being influential on your later solo stuff?
JM: Oh god, definitely. Vini's music and Durutti had a huge influence. He's all over it. Of course, there are other groups and sounds that have influenced me but Durutti were a big part of my musical formative years and I was a big fan of that sound, especially the delay which led to the sound of Vini's guitar and the atmosphere that a lot of his music created. Not many people were using it and I can't think of anyone who was using it as much as Vini and I love that sound. And when I started writing music I used lots of the delay on most things to see what kind of patterns could be created. I think, to some extent, that I'm starting to move away from that but it's still very core to the way I conceive and write music.
Tim Kellett
JC: I think what many people would like to know is how come you got involved with The Durutti Column and ended up playing on both the Without Mercy album, the accompanying tour and also on a couple of other albums.
TK: Well, I had a horn section. I was on trumpet, Rich Henry on trombone and a guy called Mervyn Fletcher on saxophone. And we wrote Tony a letter. We'd seen him on Granada Reports, we knew that he owned the Haçienda and we knew that he had bands and things but we didn't really know an awful lot more than that. We were only about 19 I think. So we wrote him this letter saying "We've got this horn section, we're dead good, can you use us on any of your records?", thoroughly expecting him to not respond and not get back to us.
And I can't remember exactly what happened, but the legend is that he turned up at our flat in Hulme and said "I will hear you on Saturday morning at the Haçienda, I will give you an audition". And I remember walking down and seeing his green Mk II Jaguar outside the Haçienda and then we realised, because we knew he drove one of those, a favourite car of mine, we knew it was real. And it was quite a big deal for us.
We went into the Haçienda and there was litter everywhere because they hadn't cleared up after the Friday night. It was a bit like one of those Hollywood movie auditions because it was quite dark inside and there were three people up on the balcony, who I couldn't see because they were too far back, and it turned out to be Bruce, Tony and Vini. We didn't know who Vini was, or Bruce, at that point. Wilson said something like "Alright loves, play us something", so we played a bit of Charlie Parker and a few other things we'd prepared and, I don't even remember seeing him that day, he'd stayed up there, he was probably having a meeting with somebody, but Vini came down and introduced himself and said that he'd really like to use us for The Durutti Column.
So, we went home and did a bit of homework. In fact our flatmate John Metcalfe knew exactly who The Durutti Column was and he was green with envy, although it was only a matter of months before he'd managed to get into the band as well. That was through our recommendation as well because they had a guy called Blaine Reininger who couldn't make anything after a particular point.
JC: Yeah, Blaine played the strings on the album but then John stepped in for the tour.
TK: But Blaine played I think at the Riverside. I remember him there with a lady on cello who I can't remember what her name was... and a Cor Anglais player called...
JC: Maunagh Fleming.
TK: And I think it was all the people who played on the record who did that show.
JC: Caroline Lavelle?
TK: Yes, and that was it really. But it was an incredible opportunity and it was only really afterwards that I realised what a great start Tony had given me. That led to a tour of Japan, we went to Spain, we did a lot of gigs in England and a few recording sessions. I played on a number of albums. It was just the most amazing start. And that directly led to me being able to form the original line-up of Simply Red. And that was ten years for me and then after that I went on to do other things, something called Olive and now I write songs for other people but really the seeds were with Tony Wilson responding to that letter and letting us audition. One of the things for me, the great hallmark of his quality as a bloke was that he did give people a chance and I was one of them. I will always be grateful.
JC: I think that one of the first covers, if not the first, that 8vo did was Without Mercy and I think that came about through a similar kind of "Here Tony I want to design sleeves for you" kind of approach.
TK: Wasn't that a Peter Saville sleeve?
JC: No that was Mark Holt of 8vo just saying to Tony "look I wanna do designs for you". I can't remember the exact circumstances. But I think the history of Factory is littered with people taking the bull by the horns and Tony being equally keen to experiment with unknown talent basically.
TK: Yeah, he would respond to things like that whereas lots of people would just ignore it and not bother. He responded and he really cared about us and was really fond of our classical input I think. I think it appealed to him that we were from college as well. It was a mystery to us really, what this band was, with Bruce being a lot older than us, there was no bass player... It was very strange for us to get our heads round and then it kinda fitted into place and we realised what the deal was. I mean even that album cover, I remember us all looking at it and thinking "Oh, we expected it to be all glossy with our pictures on" but it looked like cardboard with a watercolour stuck on like a label. It was just a very very very strange world that we found ourselves in really and not at all as you would've expected. But we grew to absolutely love it and cherish it because it was so unusual and so special.
JC: It was a pretty exciting stage in the development of the band because at the time it was still only five or six years in the running and from the outset it was a full band, then it became just Vini and then Bruce came on and then to add at that point brass and strings instead of rocky things...
TK: It was an unusual line-up but somehow it worked. Ironically, the original line-up featured Tony Bowers and Chris Joyce who would later join me in...
JC: Simply Red!
TK: It came full circle.
JC: What happened in the end when you were joining Simply Red?
TK: I remember doing a gig at the Electric Circus in London. Tony was there and I just went on and did it. I was recording Picture Book, the first Simply Red album and remember asking Stewart Levine if I could get some time off to do it. So there was a little bit of an overlap. And then once the Simply Red thing took off I didn't play for ages. I think the last thing that I did with Vini was I recorded something in my studio called “G&T” and I also did some recording with him at Revolution in Cheadle, I don't know which album for again, I just did something. I don't think I probably heard the album. And then I haven't worked with him for years since then until now.
JC: Yes, you're coming back now to play the Manchester International Festival concerts.
TK: I'm just doing those concerts and I played a little bit on the record. I did a recording session for it at Keir's house but I haven't heard it. And I'm absolutely delighted that they've asked us back.It's lovely.
Oliver Wilson
JC: None of this would've happened had you not come across all the tapes for all The Durutti Column stuff in Tony's loft when you were going through it earlier in the year.
OW: Yeah, well I'm glad they all came to some use because they must've been up there for I don't know how long, twenty years maybe? When I was clearing all my dad's stuff out I found piles and piles of 8-tracks, tapes, this, that and the other by every Factory Records artist. And I thought, well what am I gonna do with 'em? I presumed that they were the artists' property so I thought I would return them to the artists. Quite a few Factory Records artists have come out of the woodwork to get their bits and pieces back. And I gave all these masters back to Vini and Keir and I was really happy when I heard that they were still usable and that they still sounded good. It's fantastic that we're getting some records out of them. I think it's great.
JC: Obviously the philosophy behind this re-release of the albums is that they are going to released as was originally intended. So it was obviously crucial that the original master tapes were used and one of the bugbears of previous releases has been that incorrect labelling of tracks, missing elements from those original releases. So this time round it has all been made possible.
OW: With the missing elements I wonder whether my Dad kept the masters was so that he could erase Vini's singing from them!? Maybe that's what you mean by elements missing? [Laughs]
JC: It's really that particularly on the first album that the tracklisting has always been a bit mysterious. The number of tracks hasn't been right and the names of tracks have changed on the credits.
OW: I didn't know that.
JC: So with the recording off the master tape it will be exactly what was recorded on the original album. But even the first album had a second version which had a slightly different acoustic mix.
OW: So not only has history been resurrected, history has also been rewritten.
JC: Yes, I guess with the Factory releases people almost got to the point where they expected something quirky and not quite right was gonna happen. And people would say "that's very Factory". But I guess sooner or later it helps to come up with the definitive version.
OW: It's taken a few decades but we've finally got the sleevenotes right!
JC: Yeah, well let's hope the sleevenotes are right! What I also wondered was what it was like growing up at a certain point during the history of Factory and what it was like growing up with Vini and Bruce.
OW: Well, I grew up with Vini really because he was very close to my dad. I always grew up knowing Durutti Column music from being a child. I grew up knowing Vini and Bruce, so much so that whenever I would have a tantrum as a child, Dad would put on a soothing Durutti Column number and it would always chill me out as a kid. It would stop me having tantrums if he put it on. And when I was older and started learning guitar I was one of the luckiest amateur guitarists in the world because I got lessons from Vini Reilly and that was a fantastic thing. Growing up I would go round to Vin's with my Dad and my Dad would skin up and I would sit there and watch and listen to Vin playing for a few hours. It was great. Not that I would partake in any smoking! Yeah, I've got lots of memories about Vini and The Durutti Column and the music is engrained in my mind and my soul and it's something I still listen to all the time.
JC: And I daresay the Durutti lullaby trick will have been repeated around the world by various fans who are now fathers.
OW: It wouldn't surprise me at all. It really is very good music for chilling kids out.
JC: I recently read how someone listens to it whilst walking around the supermarket. And I guess everyone has their own way in which they want to listen to his music. It gets very personal.
OW: It is very personal. It's very reflective music. It's something to listen to when you have a lot of thoughts about a lot of different things. You can just do a helluva lot with it. You can listen to it in so many places. You can apply it to a lot of different situations.
JC: And of course now we're coming up to the Manchester International Festival next month and Vini has written a new piece about your dad: "A Paean To Wilson". You must be pretty excited about the prospect of seeing that live.
OW: Yeah, absolutely. And the nearer its getting, the more excited I'm getting. I love going to see Vini play live and it's always great to hear the tracks you know so well. But it will be fantastic to go see him play a totally new piece of music. I'm hoping it's going to be a very moving experience as well. It will just be fantastic to hear what he's come up with for my Dad. He's written a track for my dad before, a track called "Anthony" on the Sex and Death album. But speech can't really put any kind of definition on how it feels to have that. It will be an emotional evening I'm sure.
JC: Yes, I know there will be a lot of people who will share that thought with you. I know that a lot of people will be making special trips over to see it over one or more of the three nights.
OW: It should be special because of the relationship that they had was so special. Throughout the years they were like brothers. Sometimes they were in love and sometimes they absolutely hated each other and they might go years without talking because Vin had pissed my Dad off. But it would always come back down to the fact that they were best mates and like brothers. My dad always said that Factory Records and all that kinda stuff, it wasn't so much business relationships it was a weird story of a group of blokes who had all fallen in love with each other. I certainly think Vin and my Dad had that connection.
JC: I think most people could see that was the case and how much they meant to each other because every time Tony was knocked down and then came back with a new incarnation of Factory Records, The Durutti Column was always one of the first acts to feature.
OW: Yeah, there was a real personal and emotional connection and that shows that there was a real musical connection as well. I was like thinking about the relationship over the years because you could have Acid House, you could have Joy Division, you could have New Order, you could have all the different things my Dad worked with and then there was always The Durutti Column. It was always such a constant with everything else that was going in my Dad's life. So that's always nice. It was definitely a good relationship for so long.
Bruce Mitchell
BM: Why don't let you let everyone know how we came to get hold of these master tapes for these albums.
BM: We'd wanted to remaster the first four albums anyhow. But by using Keir Stewart's skill... he remasters from anything frequently, he's very good at it. And Vini was saying if we could get hold of the original multi-tracks or quarter-inchers it would be the best thing to do. And I said to him "Well that'd be like Indiana Jones trying to find the Holy Grail!" Thirty-odd years ago Factory moved a lot, bailiffs would come piling in and out of all sorts of different events, there was lots of stuff that'd been seized. It had gone on for a long time but we've got to hand it to Tony because Tony kept a lot of stuff and kept it out of the firing line. And when Oli Wilson had to sort out a lot of stuff in Tony's loft after he died he got a pile of his friends, and I think you've already spoken to Oliver, he got some of his mates and in the stuff that they pulled out they'd got lots and lots of the original boxes, dating right back to the beginning of Factory. And they ended up, Oli I think organised the placement of them in the Museum of Science and Industry. He then told me and I then went down to the Museum, in the original old Roman bit of Manchester called Castlefield and a lot of their archive "caves" as it were sit underneath the railway line, the first proper railway line that run in between Manchester Castlefield and Liverpool. And there it was, a palette, a full-sized pallet piled high with Durutti quarter-inchers and multi-tracks, and I think we might've sent you a picture of it.
JC: Yeah, I think we have the picture on thedurutticolumn.com.
BM: I got back to our depot in Ardwick and had to use a forklift to move them about and that will be the picture you've got. Me and Keir Stewart with a yellow forklift in the background with a big pile of boxes. And some of the boxes, John Cooper, I actually remembered! Because there were one or maybe two boxes which were marked as "The Syd Lawrence Orchestra". They would just use any old big 10- or 12-inch boxes to put them in and the Syd Lawrence Orchestra used to record in Strawberry Studios and I remember this quite vividly from being in Strawberry Studios or Yellow Studios all those years ago.
JC: Was it also a case that tapes would actually be recycled in those days?
BM: Occasionally you do that and I must look more carefully. You'll sometimes get a label stuck over you know. It like archaeology isn't it? [Laughs]
JC: Indeed and the Durutti stuff aside there was also plenty of other Factory bands' tapes that were there as well.
BM: It's strange. I went down and signed them all out - though they will probably all go back into the Museum - and it meant that Keir could get his mastering process going from the originals. Now, I don't know... between you and me John, I don't really know if there is a discernable difference when you go to this trouble. But there is a big emotional difference in going to the original source (which is analogue as well). I don't know if you know the story but it's a bit like the Dean Benedetti Tapes. One of Charlie Parker's biggest fans was a guy called Dean Benedetti who went round all Parker's gigs recording everything. When Charlie Parker died, Dean Benedetti who ran this gigantic archive just disappeared. Nobody knew where this guy was. Eventually, many years later, after Clint Eastwood made his film on Charlie Parker [Bird], Dean Benedetti's brother popped up in America. Dean Benedetti had died in Italy and his brother had all his boxes of tapes and that was like The Secret of the Lost Chord, y'know, finding who the missing Charlie Parker music belonged to. And what they had is like a first edition book remnant and that's how it felt to me when we looked at these nice dusty, marked boxes. And, of course, I noticed that a couple of the boxes had been reused. But the right tapes were inside!
JC: Obviously you joined The Durutti Column only around the second album but what do you remember of the early days?
BM: It went like this. Vini or Factory got a commission to do a piece of music for Sordide Sentimental to commemorate a lady that died [Danny Dupic]. So Vin just came round to our house and we went into Stewart Pickering's studio, Graveyard Studios. And it's quite interesting, Graveyard Studios because it was next to a graveyard. And as I am sitting here in my wicker seat, talking to you John Cooper, I look out of the window and look straight onto a graveyard!
JC: Spooky!
BM: We went in to record “Enigma” and “Danny” and they were recorded very very fast. Vin would set up in front of the drumkit while Stewart Pickering got his levels right. Vin would look at me over the bass drum and say "This song goes like this" and then he would start playing and I would play along with it live. Then Vin would say to Stewart, "Right, we'll record this now". We'd record it live straight away and then once I'd finished Vin would say "That's fine" and then he would say to me, "Well, this next song goes like this"! [Laughs] The way Vin would play, the sequences had a unusual logic. When he would go through his changes it wouldn't be in strict four or eight bar formations, the chord changes would just seem to happen in a different way. He was very easy to play with, no problem at all.
JC: So, those tracks were recorded on pretty much the second play?
BM: Yes. Even now Vin really have a tolerance for it not going down immediately. Sometimes he would spend a lot of time putting things down and he doesn't like it. It's part of the progress of the maestro really. He just does it and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. LC was pretty much recorded live in a very similar way.
It went down very fast. It was all stuff that Vin had in him, ready to roll out. I listened to “Missing Boy” recently which I hadn't heard for such a long time. I remembered that when we put “Missing Boy” down, when it went to the piano overdubs, Vin, who was playing a grand piano in the studio, is putting these overdubs in like obbligatos. And it wasn't until quite a long time after, when he was doing the gig live, that he put these little piano pieces in places where he wasn't playing the guitar! So, you'll have seen him do that live, a call and answer on the piano. When you hear that recording the piano playing sounds fantastic. It went down very fast and very easy.
JC: The thing I was talking to John Metcalfe about is that apparently Without Mercy took a very sluggish five days to record.
BM: As you might know, Vin was pretty much press-ganged into doing Without Mercy. Vin always to get me into the studio to get stuff done. He was badgering Tony to get him into the studio so Tony said "Right, we'll do this but once you've done this you've got to do an album for me." So, Vin will promise anything to get into a studio so that was maybe Another Setting.
That was because it was a different sort of job. Michael Johnson was involved. Tony was the Executive Producer but really Tony was actually producing, he was there pretty much all the time. He was instructing every now and again the choreography of the Keats poem. My favourite thing is that Tony would tell Vini what sort of moods he wanted. There was a particular part of the poem where the Teutonic Knight would appear. So Vin says to Tony "I'll be playing but when you think the Teutonic Knights are showing up give me a nod" [Laughs]. So, he went in the booth and when Vini got the nod I think he just went up a semi-tone! [Laughs]. Which is absolute classic music busking to a degree.
Like, as you probably know, when James Brown asks the band to "Take it to the bridge" that's all that happens, it's just a semi-tone. It was Tony's album, it took a long time because it was in a different studio, Britannia Row, there were lots of overdubs. Vini, like with most of his albums, he slags Without Mercy off. But it was quite important. Tony was always looking for the proper direction for Vini's music and his feeling was that Vin should be doing all sorts of stuff and would have to allocate lots of energy to force Vini to do stuff that he didn't want to do. So, that's Without Mercy.
As I explained, to Vini a few weeks ago, one of the tracks on Without Mercy is being used on a Spanish film series. So, the music has value. All the musicians played great on it and we discovered the depths of the Metcalfe talent. A lovely clear approach to playing by Tim Kellett. Mervyn the saxophone player played some beautiful sax on “The Room” on the next album [Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say]. And we were saddled with those guys for a while. Fucking hell! And then they all blitzed off to do their own thing! [Laughs]
JC: What's your take on where Durutti Column fit in with the rest of popular music, or indeed any music?
BM: It's completely separate. And, for the market, very hard to pigeonhole. Vin was going along doing his tunes and his way. Most of us were around to support that kind of thing because you can recognise where you might put a contribution into the music but it can be ham-fisted so you always step back and let Vin guide it. Vin'll put stuff in, take it out but it always holds a certain mood.
JC: What do you think about this box set and the concepts of releasing the albums as they were originally intended?
BM: I like it and I've supported it from the beginning.
JC: Because obviously the albums have been released in a variety of guises...
BM: I'll tell you... I'm a fan of some things and it's just repackaging a lot of the time. I don't know about you but I'm quite capable of going and buying a better edition of a book that I already own, if it's a book or a writer that I always refer back to. It's like people who always want to own the first edition of a book. And I think it's the same in music. I suppose you've bought a particular piece of music on vinyl and then on CD. There seems to be an emotional need for wanting an artefact and if it's an original looking artefact, people want to own that sort of stuff. It was Tony, with the re-releases for Factory Too, he commissioned Mark Holt for most of them, where he did a pastiche of all the different artworks used. But, if I'd had me hard head on, on the way it should've been done, we would've just released them in their original artwork formats because I think people have a visual memory when they walk through a record shop. I know I have. You'll see a piece of artwork you remember from vinyl days, OK it's shrunk but it stops you, it turns into something you've got to own again.
JC: Do you know with the first time they came out on CD, with the box of four albums, sonically how do those recordings compare to the new remastered ones?
BM: I haven't listened to them because I don't trust my own ears. That's why we trust to Vini's version of it, or, better still, Keir's version! When we got Keir to do it, Cleaver said he was pleased with it. Have you heard them?
JC: No, I haven't heard them but I was just keen to know how they're shaping up.
BM: Keir got stuck into it and I've got every faith in them being sonically satisfying. But I won't be listening to them because I like to bump into a listening if you know what I mean. It's happened a lot with Durutti music. I've sometimes heard it play through the door in an apartment building. And I'll stop and I'll listen to this music and I'll think "Who is it!?" and it then comes as a shock, almost like Georges Louis Borges. I like finding music and moments like that. Obscure and metaphysical.
JC: Will there ever be a Greasy Bear box set?
BM: [Laughs]. There's somebody trying to put the Phillips album out. A chap called Nigel Croft. I've seen a couple of emails. I've agreed it, C.P.'s agreed it. Steve's got some of the tracks. Phillips paid for that album but never put it out. But who'd want to buy it!?
Keir Stewart
It was my biology teacher James Tully who kindly informed me about the personel behind the first Morrissey solo album. "It's Vini Reilly playing guitars, apparently from a band called the DC" Jim said.
"Who's Vini Reilly?" I asked.
"A guitarist from this 'cute' (he sounded a bit sarcy) guitar and drum instrumental band who are on Factory Records, they're alright - saw them supporting ++++ at the Free Trade Hall, the're ok i suppose" Jim Shrugged, his reply was fairly unenthusiastic , but I was always impressed with any info he could splash me with about bands, & Manchester music was paticularly exciting because it was on my doorstep!
That weekend I heard Annie Nightingale play "What is it to me Woman" and "English Landscape..." from the album Guitar &... - . She made a big thing of it being the first release on DAT tape. This was clearly a Tony Wilson format push as he was always looking favorably at new tech. He was convinced DAT would become a consumer format. What i heard was strange & refreshing, a spacious washy twang of synth bass whammy bar guitar & with dusty brushed toms & cymbals... I was strangely intrigued by the collision of sounds that compared to my other listening diet, was highly technical yet completely lacking in any traditional structure - out of the box music if you like, without being jazz. Back at school on monday, i pestered one of my best friends Ben Raymond for a copy of this album as his Dad's mate was a compulsive vinyl junkie and provided a healthy (& illegal) supply of cassettes to me & Ben of pretty much ANY album we were after. Each tape was ALWAYS recorded perfectly from a Mitchell Girodec turntable and demagged Nakamitchi Cassette Deck, every song title neatly written in fine graphics pen on the inlay. I listened, and it was good. Later that year 1988 saw the release of the first Morrissey solo album, & it had the unmistakable signature sound of the DC enmeshed within, yet still compliant with "The Smiths" code of musical practice - it seemed so strange that Morrissey would co-operate with a musician (Vini) who was so progressive with the synths & tech, it was also intriguing that the whole production team was basically the same as the DC minus Bruce. I also knew that such detail & about how this record was made, would largely pass the general public by, i felt like I had some inside info.
My first professional encounter with DC was back in 1996. I'd been asked indirectly by an old schoolfriend Laurie Keith if i could help record some guitars & piano for DC. I had a connection at Cutting Rooms Studio in Cheetham Hill & managed to swindle a nice deal as long as we got the session closed in one sitting. Needless to say, the session wasn't smooth. It was really bad, I didn't know the studio too well & i'd only just started helping out at Pete Waterman's studio in Deansgate Church - i'd made a few records but was still a bit shaky on the controls. I couldn't get headphones working, the old Raindirk Console was playing up BUT we did get an amazing piano sound out of an old baby grand going through an Eventide Harmonizer. We got out at about 5 am with 3 versions of "Organ Donor" mixed. The next day Vin phoned me to thank me for the work i put in & asked if i'd go meet Tony Wilson in the office - which i did. Wilson greeted me with an expression that i can only describe as surprised familiarity, Vin said "This is who i want to produce the new album" (pointed at me). "Ok, fine" Tony replied
The song was Organ Donor and later came out on "Time Was Gigantic" album which i eventually recorded mixed & mastered.
Remastering the first 4 was something that was originally looking like i'd have to grip the audio from existing CDs until i thought that perhaps the actual 1/4" tape masters were still knocking about. Bruce was keen to help & managed to track them down at Manchester Museum archives. They were ALL on a big pallette & were tatty, old and covered in scribbled notes by Martin Hannett & Chris Nagle mostly. These were like ancient scriptures of the Factory, original and intact - we did the transfers at the Royal Northern College of music where we got hold of a lovingly maintained Studer machine. Banged the outputs into a new sizzling Prism converter. The recordings sounded as fresh as a daisy, though "Another Setting" needed some serious denoising.
People ask me to master stuff quite a lot, i don't really know why. It's so easy, and not very creative - but at least it's good to know that these early recordings have been "brought up" a bit & had the honor of having a really close look at some unique sonic remains.
Keir Stewart - Producer & Company Director
Stewart Pickering
JC: I've heard various stories about the recording of LC. What are your recollections?
SP: It was done at Graveyard Sounds studios which is a basement studio in Prestwich in Manchester. And I think at the time, from recollection, that we had a 4-track in that rehearsal room for our band. I played in a band called Pegasus. And it sort of evolved into a studio so I was recording various people as I found I had an additional talent to do it. As far as I can recollect, it was done on a Teac. I don't think I had moved on to 8-track by that time. It was played pretty live. I can't remember any significant overdubs, just the occasional overdub and the vocals. Were there any vocals on that album? I can't remember. But I remember Bruce's percussive style on the drums and I remember, unusually, liking the drums. A beach ball bouncing on a pond type sound. So, it was quite an unusual sound and it just seemed to gel. They relaxed pretty much in the studio and played everything pretty live. And it went down very quickly. I didn't know anything about Durutti Column before they came in. In my era, I'm a little bit older, my era was more the 60s and 70s, progressive stuff, psychedelic rock etc. I really enjoyed working with Vini. Very creative, good sound.
JC: How did working with Vini come about? Was it something that Factory organised or that the band organised?
SP: I didn't know Vini and I didn't know Bruce. I was doing various bits of work via Tony. Martin Hannett came into the studio The Graveyard and the Ballroom with A Certain Ratio. He was really experimenting with drum sounds on various things. The guys from Joy Division / New Order I think were buzzing around as well. I really met Factory pretty soon after Ian Curtis died. I didn't really know them before then. But I got to know Factory quite well and did quite a lot of recording for them. Donald Johnson and Bernard Sumner in particular because the two of them produced other bands. But with The Durutti Column I didn't know them at all before they came in and I ended up producing the album. It was very easy to do. If it's relaxed, it's very relaxed, let's put it that way.
JC: So was LC really your first encounter with them or were there other little things before.
SP: I think it was my first encounter with them. I also did some stuff for Sordide Sentimental and I also did some other tracks when I joined Revolution later on.
JC: Was it the Durutti Sordide? Or was it another Sordide?
SP: It was the Sordide with Durutti. The one with the very fancy sleeve.
JC: OK, well that was probably your first thing then because Bruce was saying how that was his first Durutti playing and then, a few weeks later, came LC.
SP: He's probably right. [Laughs] My recollection is a bit hazy.
JC: I think in those days things were happening very rapidfire.
SP: Yeah, they were working in various studios, Strawberry, Cargo, all over the place. Spending money very badly. [Laughs]
JC: How do you think LC sounds now?
SP: It's good. I listen to a lot of material that goes right back to the Sixties, made with very primitive recording techniques. The sound is appropriate to the music and the time. It hangs together and I don't know whether with myself, when I went to 24-track, whether I ever created quite such a good sounds as on the 4-track with certain bands. There was definitely a period when working with 24-track was more demanding than working 4-tracks because you had to make such quick decisions on 4-track. But I think it stands the test of time and Vini has always said he thought the album was great. Well, I don't know if he's ever said that to my face... [Laughs] but I presume he's telling the truth. And I'm happy with the album. I think it's great.
Vini Reilly
JC: When all the master tapes were found, did that come as a relief to you or did you suspect that Tony had them all?
VR: I wasn't sure because, you know as much as I do how disorganised Factory was. So I didn't know. But that last I'd heard about master tapes was that Alan Erasmus had master tapes. So I thought maybe Alan's lost them all or tidied them away somewhere and he can't find them so I was a bit surprised and delighted that they turned up. I didn't expect them to be found.
JC: The breadth and variety of things that were found there is going to amaze quite a few people I think. Not least just with The Durutti Column. I mean, having seen the photo of all the tapes on the palette, there's quite a range of stuff. Like fifty tapes of just The Durutti Column is the rough count of things.
VR: Wow!
JC: Then, beyond Durutti I think everyone is accounted for. But obviously for the purposes of this album, we're talking about the first four albums, as they've been called before now. And they've been re-released twice before. With this release the aim is to put everything back as it was when it came out on vinyl and to give it the treatment it deserves really. Obviously Keir has done the remastering.
VR: Well if Keir has remastered them then they will be good because is absolutely immaculate at all of that. He's quite astonishing. He's a very very talented guy. I'm looking forward to actually hearing them.
JC: Whilst we're talking remastering and redoing things, going back to The Return of The Durutti Column, that was initially released and then, a while later repressed with a different "mix" and came out in a different sleeve. Do you remember the background to how that all happened?
VR: First of all you have to realise that I didn't really believe it was going to be an album. It seemed too incredible to me. On the one hand there was a fully functioning band who would later call themselves The Mothmen. But they were The Durutti Column as was and I'd left them. I'd written a short note to the band and a short note to Tony saying I didn't want to do this any more because I was disillusioned with, well a few things really, the other musicians really. But Tony and Alan Erasmus kept coming round to see me. I was in a very bad way, physically and emotionally. I was just doing these guitar pieces, which I always do anyway, always have done, always will. So Tony just turned around and said "Well, you are The Durutti Column" and we'll release an album of these little guitar pieces. So it seemed so absurd to me, that post-punk environment that this would happen. I didn't think that anyone would buy them. I was also a little removed from reality because I was on very very strong medication. I didn't believe it to the extent that when the first recording date dawned Martin Hannett had to get my then girlfriend and her parents to get me out of bed because I was fast asleep! I didn't really think it was going to happen. Martin Hannett drove me down to the studio. So when it was initially released with the Sandpaper sleeve, at that stage I'd had very little involvement, certainly in packaging and the release dates and all the rest of it. I went into the studio with Martin and played about thirty pieces of music over a period of two days and then went back home and concentrated on being depressed and ill again. And then the next thing I knew Tony came round and put a white label of an album into my hand. So it did seem to me then to become concrete but I didn't know much about the Sandpaper sleeve until I actually wandered into the Factory office to find Joy Division sticking sandpaper cards on old steam locomotive sound effects album covers.
JC: So if you cared to inspect your copy you might find it was something else beforehand.
VR: Yeah, you should do. That's one thing I do remember of it. So to that extent I didn't really have any input into which tracks went on and I didn't even hear the final mix until I got the white label. I'd just left the studio and I didn't hear any of it again until it was all mixed properly. So I was very removed from that until Tony said "We've done enough Sandpaper sleeves now; we want to give it another sleeve". And Tony just asked me which artists I liked at the time and I really loved, and still do love, Raoul Dufy, the post-impressionist guy. I had a very old but very beautiful book which had been a gift of Dufy prints and I think Tony and I chose together three prints from that book. And then I heard no more. I didn't know what was going to happen and the next thing I saw these beautiful sleeve with those three prints on. So I was really over the moon when I saw the sleeve. I thought it was a great sleeve. I don't even know who did that sleeve. It wasn't Peter Saville was it?
JC: I can't remember off the top of my head but it doesn't look like a Saville sleeve [it was Stephen Horsfall]
VR: I don't think Peter did any of us at all. I think it was a policy by Tony that he did New Order sleeves and basically that was it. So I don't know who did that sleeve but it was very good. I really liked it. So that's the extent of my input.
JC: So, with regard to the changed sound on the repressing, under whose direction was that done?
VR: I actually don't know. I have no idea at all. I think because of my own strange attitude to my own music which is once it's done I lost interest. So I didn't get involved. Tony recognised this about me and realised he didn't have to involve me so he just went ahead.
JC: So, it wasn't that you'd heard the initial pressings and weren't happy with the sound quality?
VR: No, not at all. I mean the thing is that I didn't really hear the initial record on a proper hi-fi. I just heard cassettes of it and I had a couple of vinyl copies of it but I didn't have a record player at that time. So I never really heard it anyway! But by that time I'd kind of lost interest anyhow. I was very removed from any of that.
JC: Moving on to the second album, LC and by this time Bruce had come on board. Was that something natural that happened, that you asked him to join and he came and played with you or had you been planning to get him involved before?
VR: No, I'd seen Bruce around but I'd never really spoken to him properly. I was somewhat in awe of Bruce as a local character. He was very well known. I'd seen him play with the Albertos four years previously but I didn't know him. But what happened was the guy Jean-Pierre Turmel from Sordide Sentimental got in touch before I made LC and he commissioned a piece from me for his very sick and dying girlfriend Danny and her best friend the doctor who was treating her because she had leukaemia. And Danny and Jean-Pierre's record they listened to as lovers when they were chilling out was The Return of The Durutti Column so he commissioned me to do a piece of music for Danny which I believe she did hear before she died. So it was for that release, the 7-inch single that I spoke to Alan Erasmus, very unhappy about the drummers I worked with in the past because I knew they weren't right. I wanted to make this good in as much as I could. And Alan Erasmus immediately said "Well, what about Bruce Mitchell?" and I don't think I'd even considered that before because I didn't know Bruce. Alan immediately rang Bruce and said Vini Reilly's going to come round to see you. I didn't know this but Bruce literally lived around the corner from the Factory office. And that was the first time I'd actually properly spoken to Bruce and before I'd even actually asking him about whether he would play drums on these two tracks for this 7-inch single he just said to me in his usual style "It will be a honour and a pleasure". And that was it. The die was cast.
We were supposed to rehearse it. We'd booked a little hotel room that Bruce played in sometimes in Chorlton in Manchester, ostensibly to rehearse these two tracks but we ended up just playing through them once because Bruce just had them straight away. And I realised very quickly that he didn't need rehearsing and in fact it would be a mistake to rehearse it too much. So we went and recorded that 7-inch single. Then what happened was I'd bought, second hand off Bill Nelson of all people, a 4-track Teac reel-to-reel tape machine and over a period of five hours in a spare room at my mum's house I recorded most what you hear on LC. It's going through a Roland Space Echo on tape and it was full of hiss. Sonically it was a joke. I didn't even have a mixing desk. It was just done sort of flat. And that was the basis of LC. It wasn't meant to be an album. I didn't think "Well, I'll go and make an album now". I just had that five hours at night til about three o'clock in the morning and got very inspired doing all these pieces of music with a drum machine. We took the quarter-inch of that into Stewart Pickering's place and added Bruce's drums and also a piano and I think we added some of my vocals. The whole thing was done at Stewart's in one day and mixed in another half a day. So, it was five hours, plus one day plus half a day. Tony heard the roughs I'd done at home and immediately said "We should do something with this". He really liked it so it was Tony's initiative that made something happen as an album. Once more he seemed to have the vision to realise that it could actually become an album with the right attitude.
The sleeve for that was... what had happened was my first album The Return of... Bruce had unbeknownst to me been playing that album to his wife Jackie who is an artist and she found it very inspiring to paint to. So it seemed logical to ask Jackie to do the sleeve for LC, which she did, and several other sleeves too, as you probably know. So the sleeves then became Jackie's project and it was done very quickly and it's one of my favourite sleeves.
JC: Yes, it's a very good sleeve. After LC, came Another Setting and not much is really written down anywhere about Another Setting it's sort of a bit of another mystery really. Would you care to set the record straight for us?
VR: Well, that was Tony really indulging me with that album. By the time I'd done LC it was clear to Tony I presume that there was a career for The Durutti Column and that people were buying these albums. It was being played on the radio and stuff and I'd started doing gigs by then, playing the music with tape echo and a backing tape. And then also with Bruce. So I decided that I had this bunch of new songs where I was singing more and was a bit more dynamic I felt. So Tony said "Sure" and I ended up going into Strawberry Studios, which is a very prestigious, big studio as you know. Very expensive studio. I spent a few days in there with an engineer called Chris Nagle who used to work for Martin Hannett as his engineer. But unfortunately the combination of myself and Chris Nagle was not a good one and it really killed the album. None of the reverbs were correct and it didn't sing. The guitar didn't sound good. Nothing sounded good. The entire album sounded very very flat and I was incredibly disappointed with it. It had songs like "The Beggar" which we still play live and which is a very up, strong kind of rock song in a way. Well, the closest I get to doing rock anyway. But on the album it came out sounding really wet, just boring and flat. So I was very very disappointed with that album. Tony was also. I think we all were. I don't want to apportion blame, I'm sure I was as much to blame as Chris Nagle but it was just a very bad combination. I mean we had all the equipment you could possibly want and yet it sounded terrible. So that was quite a bad experience really. I think we all wanted to forget about that album as quickly as possible.
JC: According to Bruce you cut a deal with Tony over the next album, Without Mercy. Basically "I'll do your Without Mercy if you let me go in again and record some of my stuff". Is that how it happened?
VR: Yeah, exactly. Tony had just come in for a conversation one day and said "Look, you keep making these albums that you want to make and I'm quite happy with you doing that but just give me this one album and do it my way. I want it to have a narrative which will be determined by a Keats poem "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" which Tony said was the poet's version of a pop song - boy meets girl, falls in love with girl, loses girl, blah blah blah. That was how Tony saw it anyway. It was a very very Tony way of looking at it. So that was how Without Mercy was done but I hated every second of it because my heart wasn't in it. I can orchestrate for strings and brass and all the rest of it if I'm interested enough to do it. But at that time I wasn't interested in doing that. I didn't like the guitar sound - to me that's the key to it - if you get a good guitar sound whether it's a live performance or recorded, then I'm away. I can start anywhere and make a tune. With that guitar sound, where the guitar isn't responding the way I want it to, nothing happens. And that's really what happened with Without Mercy. So, another album which was a very very big disappointment. I think to Tony as much as anybody else. It was just really appalling.
JC: But at least out of that period you came to play Tim Kellett and John Metcalfe and sort of launch a whole other phase almost.
VR: Exactly. Those guys were great. As you know, we've just used John Metcalfe and Tim Kellett on the new album that we just completed. I'll always want to work with them because they're superb and they're very nice guys. Just very very good. In retrospect it was a very good move but at the time it was not much fun.
JC: There was quite a major tour of that album. How did you enjoy all that?
VR: I must admit I enjoyed the tour because at least on stage I could get the guitar sound I wanted and having got that it put some life into the pieces of music. And also it made me arrange them slightly more than I had on the album. Because I was more interested that I had a good sound. One of the Japanese tours we played a lot of Without Mercy. We played it a lot and we had a very good time because there was a very good bunch of people. Very decent guys, just nice people and a lot of fun to work with. And very very excellent musicians so it ended up being a good move to do Without Mercy.
JC: And now of course Tim and John are coming back to play with you in the concerts for the Manchester International Festival.
VR: The musical chemistry that was there right at the start is still there. We don't need to rehearse lots of stuff. They know what I'm getting at quite quickly and they know what's going to work quite quickly which is important. If you have to sit down and score every note and work out the dynamic, all that sort of stuff, I just run out of patience with it. So it's nice to work with people who are very quick and intuitive.
JC: And with regard the piece you're doing at these concerts, what you can let us know about that?
VR: I'm at the stage where I'm starting to think "How am I going to perform it live?" because it's quite multi-layered and I'm going to have to use backing tapes to some extent but it's a question of how little I can get away with because I don't really like using them, for obvious reasons. It's not very live for me then. I'm just at the stage where I'm thinking about each track and trying to figure out how I'm going to do it live. There are a couple of tunes which we just will not be able to do live in the way they are on the album. One piece, for example, is on a quarter-sized guitar called a quatro, from South America. But there's no way on this earth of miking that up so it would be audible. So I can't do that unless I somehow convert it to some strange tuning on an electric guitar. So there are all kind of logistical and practical problems to overcome. But I've started to think about it a bit more. I don't want to rehearse it too much because I don't believe in rehearsing - you can rehearse the life out of a piece of music. If I know exactly what's going to happen next I'm not interested. I like the tightrope walk of doing the gig where you don't really know what's going to happen next or how the other musicans are going to react to what one is doing at the time. So it's a case of keeping it live.
JC: So we can almost expect it to be different on each of the nights then...
VR: I think so, yeah. There's lots of room for random elements. Which is another way of saying mistakes. [Laughs]. I don't mind mistakes, as long as they're musical. I'm not worried about it. I think it will be fine. It's going to be very difficult to do live but I want to try because this album is not for me, it's for Tony.
--
SOLD OUT
A 6-CD limited edition box set on Kooky Records entitled 'Four Factory Records'.
Includes a package of interviews with the key protagonists from the period including Vini Reilly, Bruce Mitchell, John Metcalfe, Keir Stewart and Tim Kellett.
Advance copies were sold at the Manchester International Festival shows 15-17 July 2009. It was then be available in all good record shops (actual and virtual) and direct from Kooky from August 2009. All sets include the two bonus discs.
Labels: 2009, Album, Another_Setting, CD, compilation, DC_album, DC_release, Kooky, LC, live, The_Return_of_The_Durutti_Column, Without_Mercy
The Best of The Durutti Column
![Dry [Materiali Sonori, Italy, 1991]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sazKCSopIixLf65We7IIq4c6HW_oGt2NoCZm_xA8PShQrBu4unpT4DWHwhJ9U0DNr_5JPrc5DexihHA1ie-WU2JigqgHwTUPP1Pia-7RiJRian3PXSE_046zc-K5AqxNLDoFw_UfY=s0-d)
![Dry [Materiali Sonori, Italy, 1995]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vn3ImpK81CYRf3G25Ya4O6KEFbkmDbEfsn1yyejQFvMJ8Dlshoq2Kb4TjYj6BP4QH3ZJKNwf5_7DrYXslTrEMWHgqzlPdNZVi392lm46Q85pKvXPBYSXfRhhvrrtpEoP-S0-KiZ2Y=s0-d)
![Dry [Materiali Sonori, Italy, 2000]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uxlfRFm5Mk04fQnEmsFCaG7NZoDKtjp2aALq6iYsnD8eHfLpDYq1Kn-ZfjWO7lmKtDjwBCKi5voGyvpspx3_iGTfTFDCarGXKccS_SN3pYwAFdB6Ml5fcx1S4p8q-f4G3vF9JNIg=s0-d)
