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, economics 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 guard (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.
Release: Pliny The Elder-Torpid Liver-(unavailable)
Release: Pliny The Elder-Compound Lobster Maintenance-(unavailable)
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: Tim Z******i-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 and political 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.
Ludi took on the stage name "Tim Eldair", the band renamed itself Soft War, and together they began a campaign of recording and playing long weekend stints in the Mid-West, near-South, and East Coast, attempting to develop an audience.
Release: Soft War-Stay b/w Ruins-(unavailable)
Release: Soft War-Conflict-(unavailable)
"Tim Eldair", still needing an outlet for his more experimental musical nature, continued to record and release his own music.
Release: Tim Eldair-Doubts, Fears, and the Death of Reason-(unavailable, some songs appear on Early Ludi)
Release: Tim Eldair-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 "Tim Eldair", they were not able to take advantage of this momentum and "Tim Eldair" 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 "Tim Eldair" slightly altered his stage name to "Tim Elder" and proceeded to follow a solo musical career that also included producing a fair amount of other artists and bands.
"Tim Elder" recorded a full length album that he used as a demo and moved from Detroit to Minneapolis.
Release: Tim Elder-Unsigned-(unavailable)
The Minneapolis period was a particularly fertile one for Tim Elder/John 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: Tim Elder-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: Tim Elder-Everything b/w Crucified-(unavailable)
Release: Tim Elder-Fashionably Angry-(re-released and available)
Taking a somewhat new musical direction, Tim Elder decided to adopt the new stage name John Ludi for the next album...as well as leave Minneapolis for the more dynamic city of Chicago.
Release: John Ludi-Hell's Laughter and Heaven's Ache-(available)
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-(available)
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-(available)
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.
In 2008, Ludi released two albums, one with his old songwriting partner in Soft War, the other by his "Prog Rock" project the Quiet Earth Orchestra. Despite the quality of these works, the world has gone in a different direction in terms of musical appreciation and these albums have garnered even less attention than his earlier albums.
Ludi used to believe that music can change people's lives and broaden their minds. Ludi used to function outside of the major label music industry by choice. He used to write, record, produce, manufacture, and distribute his music on a cottage industry level, thus he was not beholden to the wishes of the music industry and could say and play what he wanted to, which allowed him to write songs focusing on Politics, Philosophy, and the Human Condition with lyrical depth and detail without worrying about what "the suits" think. This, of course, pretty much guaranteed that he would never get anywhere. Perhaps he should have followed the course of our culture by writing more songs about f**king and buying "bling".
When he thought it could have made a difference, Ludi used to advocate a lifestyle of voluntary simplicity, frugality, self-education, meditation, and avoidance of debt.
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A song about the current deplorable state of biodiversity.
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artist has designated this song as non-chartable.
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Alternative Pop Rock
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Rise Above
A song that urges transcendence
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artist has designated this song as non-chartable.
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Alternative
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