MUSICIANS: David Bowie, David Sylvian, Nick Cave, Joni Mitchell, Elvis Costello, Dead Can Dance, Leonard Cohen, Midnight Oil, Bruce Cockburn, American Music Club, XTC, 70's Prog and Fusion, 80's Goth, it's pretty much endless. WRITERS/THINKERS: Umberto Eco, Tom Robbins, George Orwell, Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Anton Wilson, Robert Pirsig, Herman Hesse, Sinclair Lewis, Graham Hancock (and others such as John Anthony West, etc), Buckminster Fuller, Aldous Huxley, Chogyam Trungpa, Carl Jung, John Keel, Charles Fort, Elane Pagels, Blavatsky, Joseph Campbell, Michael Talbot, Viktor Frankel, Ken Wilber, Jean Paul Sartre, Franz Kafka, Phillip K. Dick, Harlan Ellison, Roger Penrose, Jim Marrs, Zecharia Sitchin, Jacques Vallee, Rupert Sheldrake, Stanislav Grof, Carlos Casteneda (his early years, at any rate)...also likewise endless.
Neye Benziyor?
The two that I hear most often are David Bowie and Peter Gabriel...but it's hard to say...I'm pretty unique. Listen to the stuff and YOU tell me...
I am not going to be very active on MySpace in the future for several reasons:
1-I am retiring from recording albums and music promotion this year.
2-This site is getting progressively more complicated and buggy...FREE is getting to be too high a price to come here anymore. I can't even listen to music on here anymore as it does not seem to recognize the Adobe Flash Player that I keep updating.
3-The ads seem to be the only thing that consistantly works on this site (thanks Rupert).
4-If I go to the wrong profile or read the wrong e-mail, I get a f**king trojan or a worm on my computer!
5-I can keep up with my friends on Facebook. The general public is no longer my problem.
So if you send a friend request on this (or my other) Myspace page, it may take a long time for me to approve you...and I am almost never answering messages on here due to the trojan issues.
(THE MYSPACE "FRIENDS" THING: A few people have asked, so here it is...I don't put just ANYONE on here. Many of the regular people on here are personal friends and people I've known in the real world, as well as those who have expressed a fondness for my work who are not obvious freaks. The news/political/paranormal oriented "friends" are on here for obvious reasons. Now it comes to musicians/bands: I have to actually like what you do. There has to be something about it that inspires me as an individual. I do actually LISTEN to the music of those artists who send me friend requests. I think of my Myspace page as a place that people who are looking for interesting and quality musical experiences can use as a resource. But it is all a matter of my own taste...so just because I don't automatically add you does not mean that what you do isn't "good", it just means it does not appeal to me. (Oh yes...one thing I can't stomach at ALL are off-key vocals, they make me want to chew my own ears off...and I hear that a LOT on here. Not a big fan of Rap either...)
(Update 11/06: Ummmm...I usually try to keep my personal life and my musical life as far away from each other as possible, but in response to some recent queries, yes, I am currently involved.)
John Ludi was born and (to use the term loosely) raised in Detroit, a now-decaying post-industrial Mid-Western American
city that used to be the automotive capital of the world
From a very early age, Ludi sensed that there was something deeply wrong
with the world and the majority of the people living on it. Though of a
generally easygoing and humorous nature, Ludi possessed a deep and omnipresent sense of
foreboding in his heart that did not exactly translate well in his youthful
attempts at communicating with his fellow humans. This particular
attribute would persist indefinitely.
Ludi grew up reading voraciously, progressing from a foundation of science fiction, fantasy and horror to mythology, science, philosophy, metaphysics and world religions.
Ludi discovered a profound love for music in the form of Frank Zappa, King Crimson, and Peter Gabriel when he was in his early teens. He started singing odd and unpleasant little songs with a pianist/trumpeter friend in middle school, attempting to blend humor and dissonance in way that some would term avant garde (though on reflection could simply be termed "bad" ).
At around 13 years of age, Ludi started learning how to play guitar, bass, and later, keyboards, as well as attempting to harness his embryonic vocal skills. Though very much intellectually and emotionally moved by progressive genres of rock music, Ludi discovered the British Wave of Punk Rock in the mid/late 70's and realized that the Sex Pistols and the Clash were a lot closer to his current skill set than Gentle Giant or Yes. The overtly political nature of the lyrics also inspired him.
Rapidly growing in his guitar playing ability, Ludi teamed up with the only two other punk rockers he knew and assembled a short-lived but truly awful punk band that mercifully never made it out of the basement. No physical records exist of this project...hopefully.
Eventually, Ludi discovered the atonal experimentalism of artists such as the Residents, Renaldo and the Loaf, Chrome, Fred Frith, Laurie Anderson, Henry Kaiser, and Tuxedomoon. Inspired by such music, he formed a band with two other friends, named Pliny The Elder. The focus of this band was to make music that would cause both discomfort and laughter, often simultaneously, through the use of obnoxious sounds and lyrics that were an abstract mockery of the common culture.
Pliny The Elder recorded over 200 "songs" over a period of 2 years and developed a small following via word of mouth and cassette-only releases.
Ludi also recorded his own experimental music, generally increasing in compositional coherence with each release. He even managed to play some of this material live.
During this period, Ludi maintained a weird and visually flamboyant public persona, often dressing in bizarre clothing, wearing theatrical makeup, and otherwise finding ways of attracting more attention than was probably justified and going out of his way to irritate people in general.
Release: John Ludi-Etcetera-(unavailable)
After bludgeoning listeners with experimentalism and dissonance and finding himself only reaching those who were already well-versed with the "fringe" culture, Ludi decided to find a more populist way to reach audiences with the philosophical messages and ideas he was trying to convey.
Ludi answered an ad for a lead vocalist for a band (named Gon Moros at the time) that was much more mainstream in it's presentation, though still highly creative and musically inventive.
The band renamed itself Soft War and began a campaign of recording and playing long weekend stints in the Mid-West, near-South, and East Coast, attempting to develop an audience.
Ludi, needing an outlet for his more experimental musical nature, continued to record and release his own music.
Release: John Ludi-Doubts, Fears, and the Death of Reason-(unavailable, some songs appear on Early Ludi)
Release: John Ludi-The Slow Dance to Desolation-(unavailable, some songs appear on Early Ludi)
Soft War released an EP that garnered the band a fairly impressive amount of press and airplay on the college radio circuit.
Release: Soft War-One Day It Will All Come Down-(unavailable)
Sadly, this was about as close to reaching a wide audience Soft War would reach in this incarnation. Despite the quality of the music and the prolific output of the songwriting team of Greg Kutcher and John Ludi, they were not able to take advantage of this momentum and Ludi left the fold after the band recorded a never-released full length album and played it's final show as Soft War at the famous New York club CBGB's.
Release: Soft War-Labor Day-(unavailable)
The band continued on as Trust Fund and Ludi proceeded to follow a solo musical career that also included producing a fair amount of other artists and bands.
Ludi recorded a full length album that he used as a demo and moved from Detroit to Minneapolis.
Release: John Ludi-Unsigned-(unavailable)
The Minneapolis period was a particularly fertile one for Ludi. He formed a band with several local musicians (the Hate Gods), started a soundtrack company, created a label (Sublime Carnage), assembled a comedy troop (the Bad Poets), formed an acoustic duo and put out several releases under his own name as well as under the names "House of Usher" and "The Quiet Earth Orchestra".
Release: John Ludi-The Hate God-(unavailable)
Release: House of Usher-The Healing Power of Oblivion-(unavailable)
Release: The Quiet Earth Orchestra-World Without Words-(re-released and available)
Release: John Ludi-Everything b/w Crucified-(unavailable)
Release: John Ludi-Fashionably Angry-(unavailable, the majority of these songs are on the Early Ludi release)
Release: John Ludi-Hells's Laughter and Heavens Ache-(mostly available)
Ludi moved to Chicago. After only a little over 2 years in Chicago, Ludi was drawn to the East Coast where he accomplished very little of artistic consequence aside from remixing some of his early releases and laying the bed tracks for his next album.
Release: John Ludi-Early Ludi-(currently available as a double cd-r)
Ludi fled back to Michigan with his sanity barely intact and managed to finish his next album as well as get involved in 3 other recording projects, one of which was a collaboration with his old Soft War writing partner, Greg Kutcher.
Release: John Ludi-Rise Above or Fall Below-(currently available as a cd-r)
After 3 or so years of Michigan, Ludi fully realized why he left in the first place and moved back to his favorite city, Chicago.
Currently, Ludi has just released two albums, one with his old songwriting
partner in Soft War, the other by his "Prog
Rock" project the Quiet Earth Orchestra.
Ludi has long held to the currently unfashionable notion that music can change people's lives and broaden their minds. Ludi functions outside of the major label music industry by choice. He writes, records, produces, manufactures, and distributes his music on a cottage industry level, thus he is not beholden to the wishes of the music industry and can say and play what he wants to, which allows him to write songs focusing on Politics, Philosophy, and the Human Condition with lyrical depth and detail without worrying about what "the suits" think.
Ludi advocates a lifestyle of voluntary simplicity,
frugality, and avoidance of debt. Ludi meditates, works out, and practices
yoga...he recommends these practices (as well as vegetarianism) to anyone trying to keep their balance in an increasing unbalanced world. In addition, Ludi studies Current Events, Global Politics, Philosophy, World Religions, and the "Paranormal" in the spare time that he mostly does not have.
Hello John ! Thanks for the add & very kind words, Compliments on your nice work, I like in particular Rise above (Nice Bowie touch)& The complacent song (Simon & Garfunkel)! Marc
Thanks for your interest! I wanted to warmly invite you to join my mailing list to be informed of the release of my album and more... You can even join the street team to spread and support Spleen Arcana's music. It's free and it's just here:
Thank you so much for your interest Peace - Julien
Howdy John, THANKS a plenty for the vid comment. I thought maybe i scared everyone away, ha ha. Just listening to your music while i have the moment free and will have to visit your main site soon and check out all your other songs, ALL 71 of them. Cheers and i hope all is good, Suzie.
