Flash Hawk Parlor Ensemble, Plastic Bag In The Tree (Hush)

[May 30th, 2007]

[DRUGGY FOLK] Most people know Chris Funk as a Decemberist. (He's the one who runs around onstage with giant fake whale jaws.) But his NoPo neighbors know him as a jovial fellow who enjoys lazy-day porch-sittin' and string-pickin'. And it was just such recreational activities that led to a new Funk-led project, Flash Hawk Parlor Ensemble, which he describes as "all instrumental sorta acid folk music, sorta."

Strangely enough, Flash Hawk's first release, Plastic Bag in the Tree, lives up to Funk's characterization. The collaborative product of musically inclined neighbors—among them Point Juncture, WA trumpeter Victor Paul Nash, multi-instrumentalists Ruby Janes and Janis Murphy and a dog named Fang—Plastic Bag is a home-recorded, folk-centric amalgamation of covers, jams and oddities (one track, entitled "Chris Walla: Duet for Moog and Hurdy Gurdy in G Major-ish," is just that). And, from one weird corner to the next, the album is, at the very least, mesmerizing. It feels like waking up from a drug-induced nap to find yourself in the back yard on a sunny, breezy day.

The first two tracks seem reasonable enough: "Chained to the Pole" has an eerie, Neil Young-ish vibe and a spacey, trumpet-led interlude, and the following "Texola Waltz"'s old-timey strings would feel at home on any Norfolk & Western album. But then, out of nowhere, Flash Hawk covers Massive Attack's "Teardrop." And it would seem odd, except that—with meandering pedal steel and wheezing moog in place of Cocteau Twin Elizabeth Fraser's vocals—it works. Likewise, FHPE's dulcimer- and banjo-led rendition of Radiohead's "Morning Bell/Amnesiac" could be mistaken for an original.

But the goofiness that Funk—who contributes moog, banjo, mandolin, dobro, pedal steel, hurdy gurdy and omnichord—exudes onstage with the Decemberists shines through as well. Listening to "Give Back the Recycle Bin Now!," for instance, one can almost see a vaudevillian play being acted out using oversized gestures and exaggerated expressions. The track (along with a few others) carries a Ween-like air of amusement. Perhaps that's because the album—and the band itself—was born out of good times. Like a summer afternoon swilling beers with friends, Plastic Bag is rich with slightly wasted moments of beauty, humor, drowsiness, even melancholy (the sun has to go down sometime). It sounds like the result of band geeks dropping acid, and—considering Hush Records' claims it was conceived in "a haze fueled by fellowship, libations and other unmentionables"—maybe it is.