The nudie post

Okay, so apparently if you tell people you have a nudie story, they want to hear it. So, here goes.

The year was 2009. We were a four-piece called Johnny Austin back then: Johnny, Suzy, Joe and the handsome and talented David Henry on guitar (before he went on to have a successful career in IT - whatever, man).

Johnny answered an ad someone had placed looking for a band to play their community Labor Day party. They responded, said they'd checked out our music online and liked us, and they could pay our fee, but there was one thing we needed to know about their community: they were nudists.


Nudists. Interesting.

Johnny asked if anyone in the band had any objection to playing a nudist colony. Not surprisingly, the males in the band had no issue whatsoever. I had only one question - did WE have to be nude? No, Johnny assured me, we could wear clothes. "Unless you want to swim in the pool," he clarified. "You have to take your clothes off to swim." Well, I don't swim at most gigs, so I figured that shouldn't be a problem.

So, on the appointed day, we loaded up the van, piled in and headed off to the woods, where the camp was located. It was on a ranch, down a secluded country road, and I'm not going to lie - as we inched down this back road, the sounds and sights of civilization nowhere to be found, just for a minute, I wondered if we were actually being lured into a Texas Chainsaw Massacre situation with promises of nudity. I told this to everyone, and we all nervously laughed. "HAHAHA! Yeah. That'd be funny." Or, you know, really terrifying.

We finally found the entrance to the ranch, and we turned in. We chugged past the camp office, turned a corner, and BOOM! There it was - the first of many knobs that would grace our eyes through the course of the night. Some guy was working on the tennis court that would serve as our stage, and apparently even manual labor does not require clothing in a nudist camp. Seems like safety alone would make it a good idea, but hey - maybe the danger makes it exciting.

He offered a big wave and instructions to pull around back. Great, thanks! David and I tried not to look at him swinging there, while Johnny and Joe - I don't know. I don't remember. They probably made jokes. I was trying to hard too concentrate on looking at the trees to remember what they were doing.

There was way more where that came from, but we soldiered on, valiantly pretending like it was completely normal to stand there talking to some guy with his johnson swinging around about extension cords and set lists. I found that the weirdest thing, though, wasn't the people who were totally naked, but the ones who had shirts and shoes but no pants.

I should point out that these were normal people. Now, what I mean by that isn't that it's normal to just walk around with all your parts hanging out. What I'm trying to say is that these people were not models. This wasn't the Playboy mansion. There were no Kenda Wilkinsons or Pam Andersons slinking around the pool. No. Think "Walmart" but naked.

Now, you're gettin' it.

Nakedness notwithstanding, they were very nice and helpful people, and we gave a great show. They cheered and danced and bought CDs. There was an awkward moment during one of our breaks when one of the older ladies insisted on getting veeeeeery close to David as we sat at a picnic table. She stood behind him and kept leaning into him to tell him things. I'm sure he couldn't tell you what she said since, from the look on his face, he wasn't really registering anything except for his back being accosted.

But that moment aside, it all went very well until the end, when some guy decide to pull a David Lee Roth right in front of Johnny.

Thank you and goodnight!

We ended on that high note, but it's worth mentioning that it wasn't our last trip to the nudist colony. They hired us twice more. You'd be surprised how used to nudity you can get when no one else seems to notice.