Greg Ashley - Fiction is Non-Fiction (2018)

“Fiction Is Non-Fiction” is Greg Ashley’s seventh solo album and was recorded at Capitola Analog Recording Studio in Creuse, France. Ten more vintage Greg Ashley moments, including covers of Sonic Youth and the late 70s Finnish punk band Briard.

It can be difficult to adequately describe what Greg Ashley brings to the table, when it comes to the music he has made over the last quarter century. Starting in his native Texas with the wild punk sounds of the teen-aged Strate Coats, on through the psych rock of The Mirrors, and following his move to the Bay Area, into the alternatingly dark and menacing / dreamy and pastoral explorations of perhaps his best known outfit The Gris Gris, Greg has followed his muse wherever it has taken him with unhinged and reckless abandon. And that’s just the music he has made in a group setting – his vast solo catalog paints an equally compelling canvas of styles, touching on damaged folk musings, symphonic psychedelic suites, barroom honky-tonk – and everywhere else the muse takes him – all of it coming to life like poetic and sometimes bleak passages torn from the diary of a world weary soul. It brings to mind the likes of kindred spirits Hank Williams, Lee Hazlewood, Ray Davies, Syd Barrett, Leonard Cohen…