Nude Beach and White Hills

“I first saw Nude Beach perform in a stranger’s living room on Stockholm Street in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York…” That should be the opening sentence to a rave review about a powerful, transformative set of razor-edged rock and roll, where each song they played was better than the last, how I felt electrified from their opening notes to their closing thunderous rumble…but I have to confess, I remember very little about Nude Beach that night, except that they were awfully loud. Over a year later, while I was working at a record store in Manhattan called Other Music, Nude Beach’s drummer Ryan Naideau brought in a few copies of their new LP, II. Based on my hazy recollection of that one night and curious about what the band sounded like on record, I put the album on the shop’s turntable. The crisp ratatat of a snare drum, the fuzzy rumble of a bass, and the unmistakable electric twang of a Telecaster…beginning with “Radio,” Nude Beach has been every bit the powerful and transformative rock band that I somehow missed that night on Stockholm.

Chuck Betz, Ryan Naideau, and Jim Shelton have been performing as Nude Beach since 2008. Their records, two full-length albums and a forthcoming double-LP due out on the Don Giovanni label, occupy a unique rock ‘n’ roll plane of existence that finds harmony between radio-friendly giants like Tom Petty and reclusive underground kooks like Bill Fox. As a trio of musicians, they are loose without lapsing into sloppiness, earnest sans cheese, knowledgeable minus pretension. Over the course of a set as the band whips from one song to the next, they will echo the tones and moods of Springsteen, The Only Ones, The Flamin’ Groovies, The Replacements, and Badfinger, as well as anyone who released a record on Sire between ’77 and ’81. But when three people have been playing together in a band for as long as Nude Beach has, they begin to substitute influence for telepathy. Betz’s wailing Telecaster never collides with Naideau’s thrilling drum fills or Shelton’s nimble bass lines; call their brand of rock ‘n’ roll whatever you like, but it’s never short of eloquent, ingeniously performed and classically constructed.

WHITE HILLS weaves in and out of anthemic chants, deep sonic bleeps and other worldly madness for a mix that proves to be intoxicating. Since the release of the band's debut album, listeners have been praising their originality and unique brand of aural art.