The Carrots
Beauty Bar Backyard, Friday, March 19One Kiss Can Lead to Another: Girl Group Sounds, Lost & Found, Rhino’s fabulous 4-CD box set from five years ago, contains a track called “Sophisticated Boom Boom,” and that’s a pretty good descriptor of the Carrots’ sound. The three-girl, three-boy Austin sextet is doing more than just replicating an era where “wall” and “sound” were synonymous and rebels drove cars off cliffs. Wearing matching strapless red dresses and black belts Friday night, the ladies of the Carrots – singers Veronica Ortuño, Rose Ogle, and Shelley McKann – updated songs of love and lust with a distinct Southern soul sound, taking the “Baby, why not me” thread and weaving it through more modern tales of romance and courtship. Older songs “I Tried to Call You,” “Jimmy Don’t Cry,” and “Secret Since 99” kept a simpler pop pace, while newer song “Say It Ain’t So” incorporated more R&B. The Carrots have got the boom boom down, but it’s also nice to hear that heart-strung sound from the point of view of a new generation of women who are young and in love.
This article appears in March 19 • 2010.