Domo Arigato
reissue liner notes (Anthony H. Wilson)


Home from home in a Tokyo car park

Why was it so hard to get served in this bloody Japanese restaurant
somewhere in a far flung suburb of Tokyo.

We'd been waiting twenty minutes since ordering.  Finally the manager
came over, very apologetic as only the Japanese can be; our two
waitresses were giggling and in shock in the kitchen because 'Vini
Reilly' was actually in their restaurant and were so excited they
were unable to come out and serve us.

Yeah.  Vini isn't exactly an international celebrity, but when he's
loved, he's very very loved.

It was a fun/strange tour, that trip to Tokyo.  Bruce Mitchell
explaining to me how to deal with our Japanese partners, just keep
explaining your point, again and again and finally someone will say
"Hai" and you're on your way.

I was trying to get two 35mm cameras instead of 6 video cameras to
film the Durutti Column gig and it only took me two and a half hours
of repeating this to get a "Hai".  I preferred waiting for the food.

The DC entourage that had built up for the 'Without Mercy' album had
slimmed down to a wonderful core of Vini, Bruce, John Metcalfe on
viola and Tim Kellett on trumpet.  They'd done three definitive gigs
at the Electric Cinema on London's Portobello Road and I was praying
that we could capture that once more in Japan, with tape and camera.
We did.

Thank you.  Or Domo as they say out there.

Mixing down was fun; we were on a flight out next morning so the
wonderful Takao Homma at Nippon Columbia hired a mobile studio
recording truck.  We mixed from midnight till 6 a.m.  And it was
another of those warming technological experiences; brought the
strangest of foods throughout the night in those lacquered lunch boxes
that seem to dominate Japanese working life, while we worked with the
most familiar of equipment -- the desk was emblazoned 'Amek, Salford,
England' and the outboard was all 'AMS, Burnley, Lancashire'.  Home
from home in a Tokyo car park.

And by the way this is a CD; and has only ever been a CD; we reckoned
it was the first CD only release in the UK when it came out the
following year.  And it was the note on which that whole trip had
started; arriving late at night off the plane and taken by Takao to
plug in the first CD player I'd ever seen and listen to ...... 'Power,
Corruption and Lies' a test sample straight from the Denon pressing
plant.  Wow.

And then there was the trip to LA; getting Vini and Bruce a limo from
the Hyatt to the Whiskey; 600 yards.  We thought we'd go into a studio
while were were there; I think it was Milo who sorted it.

There was this cool LA lady -- I'd met her at a New Order gig the
previous summer and played Pac-woman with her and fancied her and
failed miserably and Peter S. even asked me if, as I was doing so
badly he could try instead and she was in a bunch of bands, and we got
her to come and sing with Vini and her name is Debi Diamond and that's
about it.

And 'Our Lady of the Angels' is Vini's tribute to that wonderful
wonderful town.  I didn't know my Franciscan history I'm afraid and
the whole thing was only explained by reading Reyner Banham (thanks
Mr Savage for yet another one), and discovering that the City of the
Angels is in fact "El Ciuidad della Nostra Senora de Los Angeles de
Porciuncula".  LA for short.  And the track is indeed a short cut to
Mulholland Drive.


Domo Arigato
All tracks written by Vini Reilly.
Produced by Durutti Column and Anthony Wilson.

Vini Reilly: Vocals, Guitar, Piano and DX7.
Bruce Mitchell: Percussion, Xylophone and DMX.
Tim Kellett: Trumpet.
John Metcalfe: Viola.

Recorded by G.Y.N.E. mobile.
Recording at Gotanda Kanihoken Hall, Tokyo 25th April 1985.
Remixed at G.Y.N.E. mobile and Nippon Columbia Studio No. 4
PCM editing engineer Hideki Kukizaki.
Engineers: Anthony Wilson and Norio Okada.
Concert organisation: UPU and Moon Office.