Legend has it that The Nude Party grew out of chaos and drunkenness. Six soul mates who met at North Carolina's Appalachian State University, huddled together and formed a band from then on. Initially, the lack of instrumental control was compensated by getting undressed on stage. Hence the band name. But that changed when Oakley Munson ( ) took the boys under his wing and moved into his home in
… New York's Catskills Mountains. From that moment on, odd jobs in the house were combined with hard rehearsals. The self-titled result, produced by Munson, is impressive. Their beat music sounds raw, energetic and nice and rattling. Singer Patton Magee sings like a young Mick Jagger in mesmerizing three-chord songs that navigate between , and . The strength of The Nude Party is mainly that they don't take themselves so seriously. That makes these contemporary Monkees fresh within the growing range of retro pregnant acts. (MR)more
