just until two months ago i felt exactly like you, phil. i didn't see a point in vini reilly's guitar noodling. but when i relistened to lc it suddenly clicked. sometimes vini captures a magic with his guitar and singing like nobody else. though i must admit there are many tracks which are nice background music but not more.

I've seen Vini several times, and my liking for his music seems to ebb and flow every few years or so, the factory reissues were a good idea poorly executed - I'd rather they'd kept the original covers (even the sandpaper).

Maybe the music is easier to appreciate if you play guitar? or maybe not.

weird what you say about the reissues, howard. i find they are about the best reissues i have ever seen. i never had the originals. that is maybe why i am so easy to excite.

i like the covers which are like a new look at the original covers. like a new perspective. very clever. i like the different colour inside and on the cd spine for each reissue. each cd is very easy to recognise in the shelves. each one has its colour. i like this kind of simple esthetic.

i love the hilarious liner notes by tony wilson. so personal, so funny, so full of love for his friend vini reilly. i don't want to imagine where vini would have ended up without tony wilson. and of course we wouldn't have the phantastic music.

i love the bonus tracks. bonus tracks are almost always annoying crap which you never want to hear when listening to an album but usually forget about. here they are as good as the original tracks, sometimes even better. and additionally the original albums were pretty short anyways.

i don't play any instrument. not sure if it would make a difference for my appreciation of vini reilly's music.

I think the thing about rissues is that your experience of the originals are intrinsically going to affect your enjoyment of the reissues - particularly where extra tracks are concerned - they seem like an unwelcome intrusion, like an over familiar compilation that has been re-sequenced.

When I compile CDRs for friends I always put what I consider to be a healthy gap between the end of the album proper and the additional songs that I invariabley end up trying to foist on friends as even better than the album tracks...

The DC original covers were beautiful - amongst some of the first computer generated covers (apple of course) - I seem to recall going to an exhibition of them at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, but scale is everything - the covers weren't as good in CD size.

btw. this post led me to dig out a couple of DC for inclusion on the mp3 player. I went with Vini Reilly and Bread and Circuses in the end.