Grupa Stress

Polish hard rock band (1971-1980) - a precursor of this style in Poland. In the 1960s and 1970s Polish Rock suffered from extreme limitations upon music and artists by the Communist regime. Long-haired and bell-bottom jeans-clad musicians were undesirables. The state-owned record label Muza provided no opportunity for recording, especially if the music departed from the Pop material deemed safe by the censors. Luckily, a bloated and inefficient bureaucracy made for slack in local enforcement: loopholes exploited by the Polish Radio, which had many regional studios and was able to record artists under the radar. Due to these enclaves of defiant Polish Radio personnel, many recordings survived the hostile environment The band Stress began as a power trio covering foreign hard rock like Deep Purple and Black Sabbath. The lineup consisted of guitarist / flautist / vocalist Mariusz Rybicki who wrote all of the band's material, bassist Henryk Tomczak and drummer Janusz Maslak. The group ultimately became a sextet with the addition of keyboards and percussion, as their music evolved with progressive influences.