S.W.A.T.-The Soundtrack To The New Police State (1994)


Artist: S.W.A.T.

Title: The Soundtrack To The New Police State

Label: Amphetamine Reptile

Format: 7"

Cat #: Scale 66

Year of Release: 1994

Country and Year of Edition Issue: US 1994 Blue Vinyl

Listed Condition: NM/NM

Sell Date: 12/12/20

Sell Price: $2.99

Discogs Last Sold: 8/26/20 $6.75

Low: $2.00

Median: $4.95

High:  $7.55

Current low price: $2.99 VG+/VG+

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 14

Have/Want: 164/42

Where Sold:  Fresno, CA

Time it took to sell: 5 years

Where and When Bought: some short lived punk rock collective in the east village mid 90’s new

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: D+

Sad To See It Go: No

Masterminded by Producer Alan Parfrey, writer of Apocalypse Culture, this underground all star Poison Idea spin-off parody record features the sentiment of Answer Me! writer Jim Goad.   PI contributors were  Mondo and Thee Slayer Hippy, the recently deceased drummer.  The concept is music through the policeman's eye in light of the then recent LA riots.  The A-side is a reworking of "In The Ghetto" with more "cop-friendly" lyrics.   "In The Ghetto" in 2020 could be confused as MAGA talk radio music filler.  Funny to a particular point of view, offensive to another.  Boring and redundant to me, unlike Goad's writing. 

The B-side takes on "Shaft" with actual police radio audio sounds from the riot overlaying the music.  Unfortunately you can't get a stream of this,  you'll just have to throw down your five spot to hear it.  

Goad was always about laying bare the violent underbelly of  human nature.   Grumpy, nihilist, perhaps even downright psychologically abusive, but with a perverse sense of humor that humanized his writing.   Goad embodied hatred of the police state,  possibly aware that it leads to prisoner politics acting out in "society" at large in greater numbers.

In 1994, it was harder to gauge where this fit on the political spectrum because the title and the artwork shows this to be the soundtrack for this protest of power.  Proletariat reality as art.  Of course left and right blurs when labor unions are protecting worker interests while subsumed in the interest of the politically powerful and the financial elite.  

You could make a stronger case today that this plays to the populist right despite an anti-authority subtext and imagery more common with the left.  A right that evolved from fringe to “edgy” mainstream (Vice) to political reality (Tea Party to Trump to Marjorie Taylor Greene) in 15-20 years.  Back then Answer Me was the zine equivalent of true crime reporting and tabloid.   These "populist" politics were once a joke.  The Ed Anger column in the Weekly World News, a few AM talk radio shows evolving into Morton Downey Jr. on TV.  

Now it's an entrenched wing of US devolution.





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