Greg Ashley might be the most reluctant solo artist in rock 'n' roll. As ringmaster of celebrated garage-psych circus the Gris Gris, Ashley pens the songs, produces the records, and divines the direction, and he's also prolific enough to have two albums released under his own name. So when it's time to promote the freshly dropped solo joint Painted Garden, what does he do? He invites his friends along to share the spotlight.
The Medicine Fuck Dream tour—named after Ashley's 2003 solo debut—has soldiered across the continent for over a month, a four-man crew of multi-instrumentalists. Ashley gathered together longtime associate Alan Harrison (ex-Mirrors), fellow Birdman Records recording artist and Oakland resident Brian Glaze (ex–Brian Jonestown Massacre), and Seattle local Brad Dunn (ex–Sleepy Workers) to join him on the road and breathe life into songs drawn from his own solo canon and the LPs he produced for Glaze, Let's Go to the Sea and Rain Splitter.
"Originally it was just going to be me and a guitar," explains Ashley over the din of the Pennsylvania gas station he's calling from. "I tried to play the songs that way in Austin once, but no one was listening—I didn't know how to get across. I don't really have an 'in' to get shows in a more suitable environment for that kind of thing, like a coffeehouse."
Thus Ashley returned to the cooperative approach that worked so well for him in the past, even if Painted Garden is clearly the work of a single individual. As a solo performer, Ashley takes a quieter, creepier route through the psyche than his oft-squalling Gris Gris material, a cracked outsider folk that retains the intensity even without the big beat. Dark echoes cling to every sound in the Ashley universe, creaking doors bang shut, wind whistles through ripped screens, and distortion is the only filler for the emptiness. The Medicine Fuck Dream collaboration adds punch to songs executed in a low-key manner on record, and Ashley's admiration of Glaze's music is reason enough to drag him along. "People should see him," he says simply.
Glaze's lonely troubadour tones mesh perfectly with Ashley's jittery psychic folk. Their friendship goes back four years, when a succession of Glaze's home-burned CDs convinced Ashley to bring him into his apartment-bound 8-track analog studio to record a series of solo LPs. Glaze has a slightly sweeter tone than the adenoidal Ashley, but the pair sound like they're chipping from the same pharmaceutical family, sipping codeine cough syrup versus snorting lines of street junk. They mine similar veins of '60s pop songcraft and follow stream-of-consciousness lyrics to their tributaries; both share an interest in the buzz and hum of low-budget equipment. But Glaze hears a lot of differences.
"Greg's lyrics are more refined than mine," he says. "Mine are sometimes kind of naive on purpose. He's more sonically inclined, laces his songs with more guitars and fingerpicking. I'm more into stuff from the '80s than him, pop music and kitsch." Still, tracks off Glaze's debut periodically shamble into slippery pools of sound that keep the listener equally off-kilter.
Seattleite Dunn met Ashley while a member of the late bent-rock combo the Sleepy Workers, and the connection stayed strong after the group's dissolution. Dunn busies himself locally by performing solo guitar atmospherics at the Blue Moon and the Rendezvous, and a few of his compositions pepper the MFD set list too. He's digging his first cross-country tour despite a few snags, like being denied entry into Canada thanks to a mix-up about a misdemeanor. As the van crossed the border to make the gigs, Dunn caught a bus to New York City.
"That's the best way to visit New York for the first time," he insists, "showing up alone with a backpack, not knowing anyone and having no idea where anything is." After a few days of urban wanderings and youth hostels, Dunn caught up with the MFD tour in Boston and balance was restored.
Between the hazy, narcotic air of the music and imagery that suggests chemical inspiration, the collective work of the MFD artists is often described as "psychedelic." Ashley isn't convinced the term means much. "That has more to do with the aesthetic of the recording," he says. "Everybody plays fucking pop music, different permutations of it. If it's got reverb and weird guitar sounds, then it's psychedelic. I don't really know; it's all just pop music, I guess." 
