Lliam Greguez is a macro ice photographer who captures freezing moments of a mountain stream, a creative arts therapist who uses music to engage chronically ill children in five hospitals around New York City, and a recording musician who loves tinkering with sound.
After switching colleges and majors from chemistry to psychology he returned to school for music when his mom began working as a registrar and he could attend for free. So he moved into his parent’s garage and the padded walls became a focal point for loud collaborations and esoteric experimentations. When a local hospital contacted the school for a childrens’ musician he learned Twinkle Twinkle and found he was adept at using music to help the children feel better. He now sings that French song (originally about candy) in two dozen languages and a dozen homemade variations.
Always looking for new tones and rhythms Lliam brought recording gear up to the mountains in winter to capture the sounds of nature for use in compositions. An accompanying pocket camera inadvertently found unique visual impressions of the environment and the ice photography was born. Isn’t there just a bit of vibrational variation between sound and light anyway.
At the university, Lliam met Malcolm Lucard who was taking a break from editing the college newspaper by enjoying the mellow tones of his nylon-stringed guitar in the reverb-rich stairwell down the hall from where Lliam was prepping for his “Quite The Slob” hard-core punk radio show. The ensuing stairwell jam turned into a musical collaboration which eventually resulted in taping a pzm mike to the ceiling to capture some of these compositions.
Other recordings were made out on Long Island during an afternoon at the Voltaire Château Tower giving the single guitar tunes that round stone sound.
Lliam later had an eight-track recording studio at a Latin Cultural Center in Manhattan where he met Luis as they traded an Eastern European bolt- on neck guitar back and forth and talking about how it’s not the guitar but what the fingers do with the strings that counts. Luis’ technique and rhythmic perspective add a whole new dimension to acoustic playing.
Lliam’s albums with Luis and with Other Peoples Children represent a way to push acoustic guitars a bit harder, bringing in a punk rock attitude and a jam-ready energy to the acoustic mode. Together, Malcolm’s nylon-stringed guitar and Lliam’s steel-stringed guitar created a tension that mirrored their respective tendencies: Malcolm’s love for soulful blues, bluegrass, country, Brazilian choros and sweet melodies and Lliam’s more jagged, raw folk and punk energies, as well as complex prog rock and classical influences. For both, it was a chance to push their own musical boundaries while absorbing new influences.
“The style is acoustic prog punk where the amp is the box, the chords are varied, the jam is on, and the vocals are gritty.”
SOURCE: Official Bio
