The Nude Party at Berlin

Patton Magee

Guitarist Shaun Couture and keyboardist Zachary Merrill are brothers who in their youth moved from Michigan to Charlotte, North Carolina. There they met bassist Alec Castillo and drummer Connor Mikita in high school. A few years later, Mikita attended college in southern mountain town of Boone, North Carolina, where he met and recruited vocalist/guitarist Patton Magee. The quintet began jamming in 2013 at Castillo's house just off of Lake Norman in Mooresville, North Carolina. Percussionist Austin Brose joined the band later. The Nude Party released a second EP, Hot Tub, on January 1, 2016.

Headlining tonight at Berlin, the Nude Party played 1960s-styled garage rock. Reverberated vocals, jangly guitars and a rolling organ propelled the songs with simple, repetitive grooves. The guitar leads sounded like they came from surf or spy movies. Mixing tempos, sometimes in the middle of a song, the band weaved a thread that distinguished the songs from one another yet prohibited them from sounding alike. The primitive arrangements chugged pleasingly without crying for modernity or polish. It was fitting that someone projected a psychedelic light show onto a white sheet behind the band. But what was with the musicians having all their fingernails painted black?