The Murdario Stomp

I'm a firm believer in kicking off every set with a huge mosh intro, and in the history of hardcore nothing has ever come close to comparing to One Life Crew's Murdario Stomp. SO that's why I'm leading off the blog with it.

This track was written in '94 (originally titled "The Neighborhood Stomp") by Mr. Blaze Tishko, who was essentially the creator of the Clevo sound, and responsible for heavy hardcore as a whole. His style was unheard of at the time, relying heavily on the Lydian mode with a flat forth (for you less theory-savvy players; E-F-G#. The Holy Trio of hardcore riffs). So how did he come up with this style of playing? The same place everyone from Cleveland got their chops; Bay Area Thrash.

Blaze was never shy about letting you know where he got a riff from. The Murdario Stomp is a note-for-note jack of the intro of Exodus' "Like Father, Like Son"

But that Exodus riff wasn't quite done getting around. Aside from the Stomp being covered hundreds of times by as many bands, Boston heavyweights Proclamation added a portion of it to their epic Bridge 9 Records full-length "Taken By Force", as a build up to the mosh on the track "Closed Mind". However, Mark (Proclamation's singer) tells me they weren't familiar with the Exodus track, but it was intentially a bite of The Stomp. So we have a bit of a game of telephone going on with this riff.

The following clip is the original riff by Exodus, The Crime Ridden Society version of the One Life Crew riffcycle, and lastly, Proclamation's take on it.