Previous Industries and imperfect beauty of consumption nostalgia

Thus, Service Merchandise was born, the full-length debut for the trio composed of artist and comedian Open Mike Eagle and longtime friends Video Dave and Still Rift. All three had their beginnings in Chicago, Illinois, while each of them are now based in Los Angeles, California

“Part of us making this album is a process of figuring out how to make music together,” Open Mike Eagle says. “A part of that process was putting production in front of us and seeing what we each responded to most.”

As a result of this trial-and-error approach, Mike credits Child Actor as the “most productive” of the producers involved in the creation of Service Merchandise. Child Actor ended up contributing production to nearly every track on the project.

“I think we learned what our aesthetic was based on how we responded to the unique sounds Child Actor makes,” Mike adds. “I don’t think anybody else operates the same way he does.

The aesthetic of Previous Industries is centered around the concept of nostalgia. More specifically, the trio pulls names and references to popular stores of the past to invoke its feelings of nostalgia, while the production from Child Actor and others pulls from popular sounds of the hip hop underground during the time many of those stores were in their prime.

“A lot of these songs were named after the song was written,” says Still Rift. “Because we all have the same bank of experiences, each of these stores elicit the same thoughts. So it was about pairing those with the music we made.”

The artists stress they have had their own unique journeys and experiences within their lives, though each having come from Chicago and ended up in Los Angeles decades later plays no small part in the aesthetic and themes of Service Merchandise. Mike points out he has spent over a decade in other places other than Chicago and Los Angeles, periods which are also a major part of his contributions to the project.

The group’s mutual disdain for the modern age of technology is a repeated mention in Service Merchandise, and upon being asked about online shopping all three artists come forward with their two cents on how computers and the internet have changed the way people consume products.

“Personally I don’t like the computer and ordering everything online,” Video Dave says. “I try to use it as little as possible. I like to go to stores and have an experience with people, touch the items before I buy them.”

“To me, consumption and the way it has evolved is a very deep part of this project,” Open Mike Eagle adds. “The inherent capitalistic idea that old modes are irrelevant because they aren’t what we’re doing now, combatting that idea is one of my main motivating factors in my careers.”

It is easy to see those themes permeating through Service Merchandise, from quips about Amazon Prime handling to exhausted-sounding hooks about “too much supply” and “everything priced to gold…24/365.” For a younger generation, online shopping provides ease, speed, and often for a cheaper cost too. In the eyes of Previous Industries and its members – who grew up with the physical shopping experience of Dominick’s, Sears, Babbage’s, etc. – they see shopping as being stripped of its soul and charm. Mike points out the way lives were once “intertwined” in the shopping experience, whether going to stores or reading catalogs.

“Those experiences were very important in shaping us as people…because we’re in a digital age, the world wants us to forget about that, and I won’t do that.”

“There was a longer time you would meditate on the process,” Still Rift says. “In terms of the purchase of the product, the receipt of the product, and the enjoyment of the product. The cycle is so quick now, you buy something and you barely even digest it.”

Both Open Mike Eagle and Still Rift hesitate to call the ‘old’ ways of shopping definitively “better,” seemingly a recognition that the digital age has had benefits both for creators of products and for consumers. Perhaps then Service Merchandise is not a blind nostalgia for a gone time, but an appreciation and memorial for a fleeting feeling.

“You spent so much time wanting something before you even got it,” Still Rift says. “Because that cycle was so much longer, you’re going to spend more time with it to get your money’s worth.” Still Rift references his verse on “Roebuck” – the track a love letter to shopping in catalogs – where he calls out to Amazon Prime, mentioning how “soon the whole block is listening” after the tape he purchases from the catalog finally arrives.

Video Dave talks about the physical act of going to stores as being important more so than the act of buying any given product. In a world where people seem to go outside less and less by the year, Dave says trips to the store are “a part of what my life is…I can walk to a store and see people, look at a dog and whatever.” Dave also finds parallels between the rise of online shopping and his interactions with people both on tour or while traveling for television, a field he works in simultaneously with music.

Mike builds upon Dave’s comparisons across industries, as well. In many ways, digital streaming is music’s equivalent to online shopping. Due to how streaming counts sales, its rise to prominence has made albums with more, short tracks exponentially more common, while Tik Tok’s rise has made the platform one of the most influential forces on music releases as artists and labels work to either use or create new trends with short snippets. “There’s a commentary on disposability underneath this,” Mike says, “Even just existing in the indie rap space, there’s an inherent quality of making things genuinely meant to stand as art…if you make music for wide consumption, you have to go with trends and your products become more disposable.”

In the indie rap space, Open Mike Eagle and the rest of Previous Industries feel free from much of the pressure to go trend-hunting, just as the trio makes the choice to avoid online shopping and take a walk to their local grocery store. The group puts themselves in a time paradox, making Service Merchandise the perfect record to encapsulate what these three have in common, and their group Previous Industries thus represents not only the imperfect beauty of the consumption in the past, but also the place each artist positions themselves in the music industry with the products they create.