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SAN AGUSTIN Amokhali (Family Vineyard) $10 1999 recordings by post-rock improv trio from Atlanta. While drums break apart the rhythm into jazz-like non-grooves, two guitars hover and intertwine in interesting low-key ways that recall everything from Loren Mazzacane to early-70s Dead tapes. Shimmer shiver plunk 'n etc.

SAUCE OF THE FUTURE Saliva (Sauce Of The Future) $10

THE SCREAMIN' MEE-MEES Live from the Basement 1975-1997 (Gulcher Records) $11 Oh boy! Listen up, music lovers and noise heads, improvisers and olde-skool punks: This 'un's gonna knock yer sox off! It's a collection of the 7-inch vinyl output from the Screamin' Mee-Mees, legendary pre-punk crazies from St. Louis, Missouri. With this disc, Jon Ashline and Bruce Cole finally get the respect they probably still don't think they deserve. Such is the self-deprecating racket-roll these two yahoos have been spewing about in Bruce's basement since 1972. This disc picks up the story with the release of their debut EP Live From The Basement, recorded in '75/'76, but unleashed during the punk-rock frenzy of 1977. The Mee-Mees were punk more by timing than by design. It's true they grew up on the Stooges, Velvet Underground, and 60s garage sounds--like many early punk-rockers--but they were equally influenced by more outside sounds like Amon Düül I, the Godz, Silver Apples, Captain Beefheart, etc. Although a few of their songs are composed in the old-fashioned way, most are spontaneous eruptions of rhythm, sound, and absurd word play. I should also mention that the Mee-Mees possess a very strong all-Amerikan sense of stoopid. They recorded a second EP, Home Movies, in 1978, but it remained unreleased until their comeback in the '90s. The '80s were pretty dry for the duo, but they returned in 1992 with the Clutching Hand Monster Mitt LP. The post-Monster Mitt singles are all here: "Pull My Finger"/"Family Tree" (Electric Records '92), "Life Never Stops!"/"Oscillations" (Dog Meat '94; B-side is the Silver Apples song), and "Answer Me!"/"Arthritis Today" (Brinkman '96). Also included is the Mee-Mees' cover of the Twinkeyz' "Cartoon Land" from a split single with Mike Rep & the Quotas; and "Squawk Squawk Squawk" from a comp EP for Whump! fanzine. The most recent tracks are from Bruce Cole's 1997 Venusian Plateaus solo EP, which you probably missed completely. Bruce took a very natural turn into more overt forms of improv, noise, and drone. Half of the Gulcher CD tracks are re-mastered from the original tapes, most done properly for the first time after various botched vinyl jobs. There are also numerous extended versions, with music, noise, and conversation not included on the original 7-inch releases. Lots of great sounds here, boys and girls! And it all comes packaged with a 20-page booklet full of rare photos, reproductions of the sleeves, an interview with Bruce Cole by Jeff Kopp from Head In A Milk Bottle fanzine, and notes by yours truly Eddie Flowers.

THE SCREAMIN' MEE-MEES Plastic Hong Kong Door Bell Finger (Gulcher Records) $11 The Screamin' Mee-Mees are back! And it's back to basics, kids. For the Mee-Mees' first proper release in eleven years (after a slew of archival digs more recently), they turn away from the psychodelik tweaks and layering of their 90s recordings. The duo returns to its basic mid-70s form: two adult children bashing away and making it up as they go along. That's Jon Ashline on drums and stoopid ad-lib lyrics, and there's Bruce Cole on the guitar. The guest bass seat this time is filled by Ann Rerun, the first female to enter this brotherhood's inner sanctum in its 35 years of existence. The five "tunes" with Miss Rerun concern a variety of social topics: plentiful gasoline, fried chicken, spillin' stuff on people, special sales, and reality itself. Bruce finds his voice on the brief but brutally effective "Blue Trashcan." The boys get kinda "experimental" with a lengthy double-guitar thing called "Flyin' Skull Fragments," which sounds like what a Captain Beefheart demo might've been like if Mr. Van Vliet plucked at guitar strings instead of playing one-finger piano. The two final "top secret mysterious unknown bonus tracks" find Bruce screwin' around with his audio generator in a fidgety Krautrock-like manner. The end. Now, how 'bout a sip of the Mee-Mees' new hot sody? It's been settin' in the sun for quite awhile now. [Released 2007]

THE SCREAMIN' MEE-MEES & HOT SCOTT FISCHER Warp Sessions 1972/1973 (Gulcher Records) 2CD $18 Five years before they released their first EP in 1977, the Screamin' Mee-Mees (Bruce Cole and Jon Ashline) were already making lots of racket. The two musical outcasts would get together in Bruce's St. Louis basement and switch on the tape recorder to document their undisciplined musical madness. Jon banged on drums and homemade percussion, yelping out spontaneous lyrics. Bruce added guitar and other electronic junk to the mix. It was self-contained and must have seemed like an elaborate private joke to the duo--freaking in the basement, isolated and pure. In 1972, a little bit of the outside world entered in the form of "Hot" Scott Fischer, a local rock writer who had found underground notoriety in the pages of rock mags like CREEM and PHONOGRAPH RECORD MAGAZINE. Scott was the first writer to make the connections between Krautrock and the Stooge-garage-rock underground of the early 70s. The first recorded session with the Mee-Mees and Fischer took place on the balcony of Fischer's apartment. As the boys jammed their primitive Midwestern blend of the Godz and Amon Duul I, local kids showed up to gawk, and the cops eventually shut down the proceedings. Almost an hour of chaos and space-age freak-out came from this meeting: "Edge of Space," "You're Now in Our World," "Take Cover," "The Attack of the Intergalactic Cement Mixers," "In the World of Space," and a spastic take on the Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray." In 1973, the trio got together again, this time in Bruce Cole's basement (the scene of pretty much all other Mee-Mees recordings over the next three decades). This yielded more crazed rambling and free-form jamming. The outer-space themes had already been replaced by something darker, hinting at punk-rock that was already in the air: "I Am Nothing," "Mommy I'm Falling," and two more originals that even had titles which would later become underground touchstones: "Final Solution" and "Another World." No, they don't sound like the Pere Ubu or Richard Hell songs of 1976, but what did Ubu and Hell's Voidoids sound like in '73? Oh yeah, they didn't exist yet! Yes, these guys were "ahead of their time" in more ways than one. Thanks to the ever-groovy Gulcher Records, the two WARP SESSIONS from '72 and '73 (released as limited-edition Slippy Town CDRs in 2000 and 2001) are now available on a handy double CD. Also included is the previously unreleased "Floorbored," a bit of lunacy done by Bruce and Scott for the amusement of Jon, who had left St. Louis for college. Dig!

SCREW BONKERS (Captain Trip Records; Japan) $14 Unlike most bands, Japanese garage-glamsters Rouge took a step back to their pre-Dolls Stones roots in '77 instead of taking the punk route. Along with the name-change to Screw Bonkers, they added a Hammond organ to their basic line-up of vocals, guitars, bass, and drums. The playing here is perhaps a shade better than the inspired semi-comptent stumble of Rouge's Live 1976 CD, but it's still pretty primitive by most standards of that particular day. It's hard to tell the "originals" from their covers of "Brown Sugar," "It's All Over Now," and "Johnny Be [sic] Goode."

SHAFER/TUNIS Drum Improvisations (Carbon Records) CDR $8 Brian Shafer and Joe Tunis cook up more than an hour of drum/percussion improvs performed with drum kits, Tibeten prayer bowls, mini-gong, brushes, sticks, cello bow, cymbals, lighting fixtures, thumb piano, bells, the walls of the room, etc. Numbered edition of 75. Released 2001.

SHEET Live at the Bug Jar (Cardon Records) CDR $8 Before he got around to writin' songs for sad gurls, Hilkka member Nuuj did this half-hour assault that starts out pretty groovy and then becomes, um, harsh. It's a big 'un.

MIKE SHIFLET Xenakis Youth (Carbon Records) CDR $8 10YR.Series.02: second in Carbon Records' 10-year anniversary CDR series. Carbon catalog: "This is an AMAZING collection of tones, glitches and drones. Would fit perfectly on your shelf alongside releases from such labels as Mego, Touch, Raster-Noton, etc. I was blown away by this when i got the master CDR from Mike in the mail." Released 2004.

SHIFTS Vertonen (Humbug; Norway) CDR $11 Dutch composer Frans de Waard is Shifts. This is another of his nifty minimal crawls along the banks of the river nada. Much of it sounds like a scratchy, stuck record repeating--but pumped up so much that the cartridge hum overwhelms even the stuck-stylus. Amazingly, it's really constructed from samples of acoustic guitar! Here's some thoughts from the man hisself: "VERTONEN was recorded in 1995 when I lived in Den Haag. It's the first release (and maybe last?) by Shifts that uses samples, here all of the acoustic guitar. It was recorded on four track. These are the first five pieces on the release. I can't remember when I added the sixth and seventh piece, but basically it was still sampler and four track. the eighth version of vertonen will be released on Humbug's Cottage Industrial series and is a computer version of the original source material."

SHIFTS Pangaea (Elsie and Jack Recordings) $11 Elsie and Jack: "Shifts, another pseudonym for Frans de Waard, a co-founder of Beequeen, also renowned for his ongoing experiments for recycling music with Kapotte Muziek. de Waard likes to treat his various guises with a broad stroke of monochrome paint...each name is something else, something different. Shifts as an idea has existed on paper for a number of years--only recently fully materializing in the form of two 7"s released on de Waard’s Korm Plastics label. d e W a a r d = m i n i m a l i s m  and Shifts embraces the traditional concept of minimalism implementing multi-layered drone guitars and overtones that create an overwhelming atmosphere. Pangæa is indeed a concept album, inspired by the process of the earth's plates drifting apart into the four separate continents becoming the world we know today. The plate tectonics that cause the drifting is echoed in the music...blocks of sound are repeated in several layers to create an unworldly soundscape. There are four distinct sections to be noted here--although indexed as one track. There is a guitar sound to be spotted in the first and in the last section, the large middle section is just guitar generated overtones. Shifts, an altogether successfully realized observation from the ever prolific Frans de Waard." Released 1997.

SLUNKY SIDE Warui Buttai (Captain Trip Records; Japan) $11 Fifth album by contemporary Japanese heavy-psych band. Released 2004

SPARKLE Namaste Presents Jamana Hamro Laagi Ho... (Captain Trip Records; Japan) $12 All-girl pop-rock band from Nepal. Released 2001.

SPAZZMODICS Vermin Perm (Dual Plover; Australia) $12 Dual Plover catalog: "If click clack front and back got you dancing prepare to stand again. if hall and oates had taken matches to puppies on stage they'd sound like this. Loud enough to attract complaints from your neighbours while smooth enough to entice them inside." Huh? I hear shit-grinnin' toe-tappin' sample-loop-noise-pop from a group who probably have no worse habits than the truly decadent poop that dominates the airwaves--airwaves which should be filled with this sorta culture-smashin' crab-dance mania. It's just Spazzmodics is more honest and much more exciting. Listen as they merrily mangle the pop-cult that blindly mangled Spazzmodics in the first place.  No "songs" here, music fans--just the grooved-out remains of your world re-assembled for new listening possibilities. Shake yer head yes. Released 2003.

SPEED Live at Loft '85 (Captain Trip Records) $12 Captain Trip catalog: "Speed was a legendary band formed by Kengo and Shinichi Aoki (ex.-Murahachibu) in 1976. This CD includes unreleased live recording from 1985. Cover art: Shinobu Ishimaru."

SQ Monosite (Carbon Records) $8 Marc Faris + Joe Tunis 1997 Rochester NY 19 minutes mono handheld cassette recording free rock whirrrr grrrr hummmm mumble yell. I dig.

STALINGRAD SYMPHONY Struggle (no label) CDR $15 2001 release by Bill McCarter (guitar), Michael Leigh (guitar), Leonard Keringer (bass), and Robert Kemp (drums). Bill McCarter was a founding member of Crawlspace, but left at the end of 1989. Leonard Keringer was also with Crawlspace in 1987, and currently plays with the Lazy Cowgirls. Michael Leigh is also with the Cowgirls. Robert Kemp runs a music store in Vincennes, Indiana--the small town from whence came the original Lazy Cowgirls (but not Keringer or Leigh) and most of the original Crawlspace (except yours truly Eddie Flowers). So, what kinda thang did these four guys do when they got together at Earle Mankey's studio? Well, it's sure not punk-rock! Instead, they whup through an intense 40-minute free-rock sprawl that's full of Velvety roar from McCarter, rock-jam diddlin' from Leigh, and a pretty swell rhythm section 'neath it all. My favorite "Crawlspace-related" release ever! (Sorry, Fearless Leader!) This is Bill's original hard-to-find CDR release before it was reissued on Gulcher Records with other material.

HOWARD STELZER & THE CHERRY POINT Gross (Carbon Records) CDR $8 Recorded in Boston and Los Angeles by Howard Stelzer and Phil Blankenship. Carbon catalog says: "the ninth in the Carbon 10 year anniversary CDR series. 46+ minutes of bi-costal, brutal, tape/electronic fabric. full, and right on!"

SUNSHIP SEXTET (Carbon Records) CDR $8 Cock E.S.P. and friends (including TLASILA go-go girl Misty Martinez) stir up a low-hum guitar-grind that slowly develops into "noise" and eventually some space-warp action. Recorded 2000 at a Sonic Youth gig in Minneapolis. Lmited edition of 100, each packaged in handmade cardboard cover with toner-transfer artwork and full-color inserts (including a provocative shot of Ms. Martinez). Not to be confused with Campbell Kneale's Sunship "power trio" from New Zealand.