Rabbits and Carrots is the strangest name for a funk band this side of Columbus, Ohio's Suspicious Can Openers. And it's certainly not a name that suits Mexico's hardest funk outfit. You'd expect something funky from Tequila, but Rabbits and Carrots?
The group's sole LP on Mexican monolith Musart Records stands as the pinnacle of Mexican funk. It was the introduction to the "hard" side of the funk spectrum for all of us who who were rediscovering old records before eBay. Only the deepest of the deep collectors had a copy, and only the luckiest among that elite group had a copy that played all the way through without skipping. Thankfully, that album has finally seen an official reissue on CD; the disc combines the album's frightful funk covers with the R&C's later 7" EP of four other funk masterpieces, including a tough-to-place take on James Brown's "Sex Machine" titled "Maquina De Amor."
So a brief survey of funk from way down south seems appropriate. Dig in with Vampisoul's Rabbits and Carrots reissue, and then dig a bit deeper to learn more about the sounds of urban Mexico in the late '60s and early '70s.
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