Born in Belfast Northern Ireland, David (Ludwig)O’Neill spent most of his childhood in a city very much ravaged by sectarian violence and political turmoil. However his escape came in the form of music with a harmonica given to him at the age of 6 and in the secret sessions spent making one-string noises on his older brothers guitar the guitar he wasn’t allowed to even look at, let alone play. This behaviour represented a prolepsis of the determination still found in Ludwig’s approach to his music today.
During a song writing episode at the age of 15, David’s friends had called to see if he was gonna hang out… the song was more important than going out to look tough on a street corner, so he declined their offer. Later that evening he was walking past the same group of friends when they derided him with taunts of; look there goes Ludwig the composer. The name was subsequently adopted as a two-fingered salute to those so-called friends.
Having played the local music scene for the last 10 years in various bands with some measure of success, the most notable of these outfits being The Bush Turkeys in the early to mid nineties, Ludwig then began to experience a more mellow, darker, sometimes Celtic, influence creeping into his song writing. In some ways these attributes made them unsuitable for the bands he was currently working with; Reeferadio. a rock/blues outfit and Apartment a jazz/soul band.
The turning point had arrived; Ludwig found that the only course of action was to allow this exciting new musical direction take over. In the last two years the songs have grown into a very heady mix of raw emotion and tempered rage against the tribulations and trials that life has had to offer him so far. Ludwig writes and sings about ‘real’ issues and presents them musically in a very accessible format with nice ‘easy to hear’ (and grasp) lyrics and themes.
A five track EP release is due in summer 2007. Recorded at Bigspace Studio, Newry with producer Declan Legge, Both the EP and the full 14 track album will feature some of Ludwig’s best recent work and will be released on Folkwit Records (UK) http://www.myspace.com/folkwit Already Ludwig’s back catalogue of songs is growing daily and as his writing form becomes more and more prolific, subsequent recordings are more than guaranteed.
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