Excellently named emo band …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead was formed in late 1994 by singers/guitarists/drummers Jason Reece and Conrad Keely, long-time friends who originally met in Hawaii before both settled in the perennial indie hotbed of Olympia, WA (where Reece fronted the notorious Mukilteo Fairies). Upon relocating together to Austin, TX, the duo played their first shows as You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, eventually adding both the conjunction and the ellipsis as well as recruiting guitarist Kevin Allen and bassist/sampler Neil Busch. After issuing a live cassette on the local Golden Hour label, the group—already legendary in indie circles for their anarchic concert sets—released their self-titled full-length debut on Trance Syndicate in early 1998. Following the label’s collapse, T.O.D. moved to Merge to issue Madonna in the fall of 1999.