This episode of The Trap Set is brought to you by C&C Drums, Handmade Drums from Gladstone, Missouri.

Check them out online at c&C custom drums.com.

This is Joe Wong.

Welcome to the very first episode of The Trap Set, where each week we examine the lives of drummers.

I want to play something for you.

You're hearing the sound of an audience on October 13, 1995, at the rave.

An unavoidable rock club in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

This was an important night for 15-year-old me because it was the first time I saw Fugazi live.

I'd heard of them, but I didn't own any of their albums, and I wasn't too familiar with their music.

The room was hot and humid from a thousand sweaty bodies mixed with the fog of cigarette smoke.

The band came on stage and insisted that the house lights be turned on.

They didn't believe in dramatic stage lighting.

Then, without ceremony, they tore into a relentlessly powerful set

that filled the room with pure energy and changed my life. In the weeks following the show, I got more and more obsessed with Gugazi.

They quickly became my favorite band.

And the more I learned about them the more I respected them they were

the definition of an independent band they ran their own label book their own

tours and they made sure all their shows were accessible ticket prices were

always five bucks and the shows were always all ages they were the gold standard

to which every band I played in and countless others around the world aspired.

Arguably, they were the most important rock band of their time.

But what made Fugazi truly great wasn't their business practices or their cultural significance.

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