Smog Veil Records announces record release party for Mr. Stress Blues Band: Live At The Brick Cottage 1972 – 1973. Live concert celebration will take place on Friday, June 3, 2016 at the Beachland Ballroom (15711 Waterloo Road in Cleveland, Ohio). Alumni from the Mr. Blues Band will take the stage including Blue Lunch, Anthony Lovano’s Supernatural Band Featuring Tim Matson, and The Alan Greene Band. Special guests will be announced closer in. The show is all ages, tickets are $10, and doors are at 7:00 pm with first act starting at 8:00 pm.
Mr. Stress Blues Band: Live At The Brick Cottage 1972 – 1973 is the next release in the Platters du Cuyahoga series. The record, which features extensive liner notes streets, Friday, May 13, 2016 and will be available in digital format as well as CD and vinyl LP.
“With the release of Smog Veil’s Mr. Stress Blues Band 1972-73 retrospective,” label founder Frank Mauceri says, “we are honored that many of the musicians who played with the band at that time and throughout the band’s storied history are taking the time to do what Bill aka Mr. Stress enjoyed most: taking the stage, making people dance and smile, and giving to the community he lived his whole life in: Cleveland, Ohio.”
The album is a collection of recordings taped live at the legendary Brick Cottage in Cleveland in 1972 and 1973. Peter Laughner, Cleveland proto-punk legend and brief member of the Mr. Stress Blues Band, initially got the band booked at the “Sick Brick.” The scene in and around the Brick was the stuff of legend.
Late last year the Cleveland Scene ran a cover story noting “Smog Veil has done much to nurture the local scene. That continues with Smog Veil’s latest and most ambitious project yet: Mauceri and company have launched a special reissue campaign dubbed Platters du Cuyahoga…Each release will arrive on vinyl and be accompanied by extensive liner notes put together by Andrew Russ and Nick Blakey, a sharp research team Mauceri has hired specifically for the project.”
Online music publication, Stash Dauber recently wrote “Miller — who died in 2015 as this release was being prepared — was a workmanlike singer in the same vein as Butterfield or Charlie Musselwhite. His harp playing was modeled on Little Walter’s and Sonny Boy Williamson’s — whose wasn’t? — and he could hold his own onstage with Robert Jr. Lockwood, a familiar of both his exemplars who’d settled in Cleveland in the ’70s. Miller fronted a hard-gigging, four-sets-a-night unit whose character changed with the musicians that passed through.”
Mr. Stress Blues Band: Live At The Brick Cottage 1972 – 1973 track listing:
Side One: (24:50) 1. How Many More Years (Chester Burnett) (Brick Cottage 1973) (9:35) 2. Walkin’ Through The Park (McKinley Morganfield) (Brick Cottage 1972) (4:12) 3. Good Time Charlie (Malone-Scott-Caple) (Unknown Location 1972) (3:49)* 4. Scratch My Back (Slim Harpo) (Brick Cottage 1973) (5:12) 5. Chicken Shack (Break Song) (Milburn-Cullum. arr MSBB) (Brick Cottage 1973) (1:50)
Side Two: (24:46) 1. Get Out of My Life Woman (Allen Toussaint) (Brick Cottage 1973) (7:02) 2. Big Boss Man (Jimmy Reed) (Brick Cottage 1973) (3:16) 3. I Feel So Bad (Chuck Willis) (Brick Cottage 1972) (4:19) 4. Sweet Little Angel (King-Taub) (Brick Cottage 1972) (9:59)
CD and LP download Bonus Tracks: (25:49) 1. Rock Me Baby (King-Bihari) (Kenny’s Last Stand at The Brick Cottage 1973) (4:51) 2. Crosscut Saw (R.G. Ford) (Brick Cottage 1973) (5:03) 3. Help Me (Williamson-Dixon-Bass) (Brick Cottage 1972) (6:00) 4. Black Night (Jessie Mae Robinson) (Brick Cottage 1972) (8:28) 5. Chicken Shack (Break Song #2) (Milburn-Cullum. arr MSBB) (Brick Cottage 1973) (1:27)