Rod Vincent and Finn O’Reilly Photo: Ivan Rakhmani
Rod Vincent moved to Ludlow three years ago to concentrate on his writing. He had completed a couple of novels in London and had poems published in a number of literary magazines. His stories and poems were among the winners in competitions but he hadn’t published a novel. He was determined to write another and keep going with the poems. Ludlow would be the perfect place to find the quiet in which to write.
Ludlow Castle Photo: Rod Vincent
It’s also the perfect place to visit. Finn is a singer/songwriter from Dublin. He met Rod a few years ago as the families are friends and had all been on holiday to Catalonia together. He and Rod became friends talking about film and music on country walks. In April 2019, he announced his intention to visit Rod and his partner Jess for the weekend.
On the Friday evening, just for fun, Finn picked up a guitar and put one of Rod’s poems to music. The next day they both woke up with the song going through their heads. So, they decided they might as well have another bash. In a crazy 24-hour session they wrote 10 more songs. It felt like something magical had happened, like the songs had written themselves.
Other magical things happened that weekend. One of the lyrics in that first song Alarm Call is “Tiger is starting to make a comeback in the masters.” The lyric is partly an allusion to William Blake’s tyger, tyger; but strangely, that weekend in April, Tiger Woods won the US Masters in a dramatic comeback after years in the doldrums.
Most recently, they played their first gig together at the Wheatsheaf Photo: Matthew Trustman
Another song is Anna and the Apple. It will be the second single to be released by O’Reilly & Vincent on 28 February. The song has the lyric “She spent her afternoons on Ripple Bay.” Rod wrote that as part of a poem, years before he met Finn or had listened to Finn’s favourite band, The Grateful Dead. Finn’s favourite song by that band is called Ripple. There had been many of these strange moments of serendipity that have helped to glue Rod and Finn together and given them faith in the songs.
Since April things have moved like a hare across the Long Mynd. They have recorded 11 tracks in a studio in Dublin. They have worked with sound engineers and mastering engineers to get the songs professionally produced. They have filmed and edited four videos. One of those back in Catalonia. They have built a website. They have set up the distribution to release the songs. They have written another 12 songs for a second album. And Finn played at Rod and Jess’ civil partnership at Ludlow Castle. Rod has abandoned all hopes for the novel for now.
Finn came back to Ludlow to play at the “It’s not a wedding” in July Photo: Jess Baker
The first single Men & Books will be released this Friday on all the main digital platforms. Three more singles and the full album will follow over the next few months.
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