Midget Handjob – Midnight Snack Break at The Poodle Factory

Midget Handjob – Midnight Snack Break at The Poodle Factory
Epitaph – 2000
Rock, Punk, Spoken, Avant-garde
Waardering: ****

Yeah! There’s a kick ass poodle on the cover! Indeed. Los Angeles is surely a freak magnet and has emanated some strange sounds, even by Hollywood standards in past years; seering from seedier clubs and galleries on the east side. The clang of pots and pans, pounding water jugs, blasting saxophones and an eerie western slide fill the night air. In the middle of this cyclone of noise sits a strange little man perched on top of a broken TV set reading from a scroll of papers like a post-apocalyptic Moses in dread locks. The guilty party calls themselves Midget Handjob, a name whose pronunciation is almost as foul as the images it conjures up. Midget Handjob is one of the rarest of musical anomalies. Spoons and forks sloshing around together in a pot keeping perfect time creating eleven mind blowing and bone chilling tunes. Recorded in the high desert of Southern California, in the studio at Rancho De La Luna with producer Tom Grimley, Poodle Factory almost didn't happen as the band encountered an earthquake. But former Black Flag and Circle Jerks frontman Keith Morris makes light of it. When the “tumbler” hit, he laughs, he didn't even get out of bed. “What the hell for?” he asks. “I've lived my whole life in California, so an earthquake is hardly a new experience for me. All these people were convening in the parking lot of the motel, freaking out because we had lost power.” The power came back, of course, and Poodle Factory was back on track. Pleased with the results of Midnight Snack Break at the Poodle Factory and grateful to have his health back, Morris reveals, “I'm hoping that this record does well enough that Epitaph allows me to do another one. [Epitaph owner and former Bad Religion member] Brett [Gurewitz] pretty much understands that it's important to keep me busy and this record was really inexpensive to make. Over the years, the Circle Jerks were really good to Bad Religion, so it looks like things are starting to come full circle, pun intended.” Morris' verbal blitz received augmentation from Frenchman John LeBear (Saxophone) plus ex-members of Clawhammer (multi-instrumentalists Jon Wahl and Chris Bagarozzi), Lutefisk (percussionist Brandon "Quazar" Jay), the Geraldine Fibbers (percussionist/guitarist Kevin Fitzgerald) and Detox (guitarist Tony Malone), all of whom appeared on the album. Unfortunately; so far no second album has appeared but the poodles still roam free… Like a demented flee infested plague…

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