The memories
The Memories are a lot of things. Prolific, mysterious, heartbreaking, dumb. This year, the LA-based lo-fi stoner pop band will turn 10, a decade after forming in Portland in 2010. With a loose lineup composed of longtime friends and ever-changing members scattered across the world, The Memories are led by the Los Angeles-based artist Rikky “Free Weed” Gage, alongside longtime friends Izak Arida, Chris “Unkle Funkle” Uehlein, Jimmy “Jerry Rogers” Leslie, and notable songwriter and longtime collaborator Colleen Green. With frequent accompaniment and contribution by other friends, The Memories are like the Wu Tang Clan – a collective/supergroup of talented artists who each bring their own strengths and sensibilities to the table. In addition to their sister band White Fang, The Memories’ lineup boasts a large list of side projects including Free Weed, Heaven The Dude, Unkle Funkle, Colleen Green and more. The band is now poised to release Pickles & Pies, their most ambitious, studio-polished record to date, and their third official full-length and first since 2018.
After dozens of albums, EPs, singles, and compilations on practically every format (look no further than their extensive Bandcamp catalog), sprawling world tours and shows alongside The Growlers, R. Stevie Moore, Sonny & The Sunsets, Calvin Johnson, The Lemons, and many more, the band has garnered a sizable cult following around the globe. The formerly Portland-based band owns and operates the beloved long-running, Burger Records-affiliated label Gnar Tapes (YACHT, Lucky Dragons, Fat Tony, JUICEBOXXX and more), which Gage launched in 2008 at the age of 18. Around the same time, the group of friends formed White Fang, which shares many of the same members of The Memories and frequently tours the globe. While White Fang embraces more of a DIY punk, campy aesthetic, The Memories is geared more towards the individual members’ laid-back experimental songwriting, fusing elements of weirdo lo-fi stoner rock with a bedroom pop vibe, even touching on folk, country, oldies and pop. The band(s) often pull double duty, touring together and playing back to back on tour. In 2015, the band slowed their intensive touring schedule when they opened their Gnar Tapes music and lifestyle boutique in Los Angeles, an experience that led to the development and production of a pilot for Comedy Central called Gnarnia (watch).
Frontman Rikky Gage describes the two jobs as White Fang being like a plumber, and The Memories being like being a waiter: they’re in totally different modes when they’re in each project. Granted, in the early lo-fi days there was more of a blurry line, but over the years the lineup became more visible. The Memories’ lineup may be constantly evolving, but that hasn’t done much to change the dynamics of the band – just widened the pallet. At this point everyone in the band knows what a song by The Memories can and can’t be. The main difference at this point being that The Memories are a little softer and more mellow, whimsical, romantic, and stoney, while White Fang is more rowdy, goofy, and crude.
For the first time on Pickles & Pies, each member of The Memories contributed songwriting credits; the end result is an absolutely brilliant fusion from a band who you never know what to expect to hear next. Most of the album was written at Axis Mundi Records’ Rockaway Beach Hut studio in Rockaway, Queens, where they also recorded the album. Axis Mundi and Gnar Tapes will be releasing the album jointly on May 29th, 2020. Each member wrote snippets of music in LA, before decamping to Rockaway where they quickly fleshed them out and turned them into songs. The band spent a lot of time frequenting the bodega across the street, which is what they named the album after (it’s also featured on the cover art).
Executive produced by The Memories and mixed by Mitch Glider and Brian Hoener, Pickles & Pies is a 13-song album that draws influence from all across the sonic spectrum. From lo-fi bedroom pop to vocoder-enhanced songs like “Last Chance To Dance,” the album even features an undeniably awesome cover of Ace of Base’s enduring hit “The Sign,” sung by Colleen Green. The bands’ influences are so vast that they wanted to showcase that they aren’t purists in their musical diets. Colleen had already been performing her own cover of “The Sign” live in her style, but the band wanted to utilize Funkle’s studio wizardry with the, at the time, completely overflowing wealth of studio gear. They also wanted to show not just their love of 90’s Swedish pop (the band also has an unbridled love of ABBA) but also their love of 90’s dub as well.
The album’s lead single “Second Try” is at its heart a song about reminiscing and nostalgia. On the surface, it may seem that the lyrics elude to feelings of regret or disappointment but the band was feeling quite the opposite at the time. Written by bassist Izak Arida, the song is about how spending his twenties touring the world would have been a far off fantasy had you told a teenage version of him that that’s what they’d be doing with their life – so in the song when the question “would you do what you used to the second time?” is posed, he’s really asking himself the question (which is a resounding yes).
The Memories are indeed a lot of things. And while at times it can be disorienting to wear so many different hats, the unwavering friendship and creative exploration at the core of the group’s charm continues to steer the ship for the group as they embark on a new decade of adventures and with luck, several more to follow.