Mellow out with wild carrot
TuneDin Florida Today – Entertainment, January 21, 1999

We’re going to mellow things out a bit this week. The holiday hype is over, all of the New Year hubbub is finally quenched, and TuneDin just wants to relax.
So I put in this CD from a Cincinnati-based acoustic duo. The first thing I hear is this obviously classically trained guitarist who is strumming and plucking like no one’s business.

Then this hauntingly distinctive female voice creeps in, backed up by a subtle male harmony. Hmmm, I say to myself, not bad, and relaxing, mind you. That’s what I’m shooting for. I listen for a bit, then move on to the song and the next and the next. I’m doing a time warp musical escapade on my CD player as I encounter ‘30’s ragtime/folk, traditional folk songs that would make Joan Baez cry out, “Hey! That sounds familiar…” and even a jazzed-up cover of the Judy Garland classic, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

The name? wild carrot. Just like that – no caps. It’s the only thing I’m not liking about his tasteful twosome. The name doesn’t fit. I’m expecting some Limp Bizkit/Korn rip-off band when I hear yet another food reference band name. But I guess it’s referring to the shock of red hair that crowns its members, Pamela Temple and Spencer Funk.

The layering of harmonies set to simplified and scaled down lyrics are underscored nicely by some beautiful guitar and mandolin playing by Temple and Funk.

It was an uplifting way to start off the New Year and now you can do so yourself as wild carrot performs a short sting from 5-7pm Sunday at Cocoa village’s Kool Beanz. wild carrot. Still getting used to that name, but digging their sound. For more information, call 638-4855.

– Melanie Velisek