Dub Step Underground - All Night Long

I have never in my life been to a party that raged quite as hard as the Winter Baller's Ball. It was presented by Crutopia, an up and coming promotions company that is expanding very quickly. Everything was extremely professional, despite the fact that it was a house party and not at a club or other venue. Everyone had numbered wristbands and everyone was safe and taken care of.

I showed up around 3 PM with Felipe, Fiddlehead's lighting expert, to start setting up the lights. We came to find out Crutopia had a few lights of their own, and the combined light show looked nothing short of cosmic. Lasers, LED's, strobes, color strips, you name it, the entire room was covered with lights. The sound board and speakers were also top of the line and when everything was setup it looked like some top level touring musicians were going to play.

Around 6 PM the first band, Black Light Ruckus took the stage to entertain the small crowd that had begun to trickle in. They are a pretty good band with some good original songs and get my personal approval for having the most lyrics out of any band of the night. They also all switched around to different instruments, showing they were all multi-talented.

After BLR, Fiddlehead took the stage at about 7 PM. They played a great set filled with favorites such as "House of Groove" and "Space Cream" with Mike Strakus throwing in some cool loops for "Robots" and the hippo hunt song whose full name I can't quite remember yet! Felipe was completely awesome on the lights and I thought the band did a great job. Tim Johnson sounded especially good on the drums and Pat Nelson's new Parker Fly brought us tones from the future. Everyone enjoyed their set and everyone was up and dancing.

Lespecial, a dub step band, came up after Fiddlehead. They had guitar, bass, drums, a couple mini Korgs and a little mixing panel for good ole fashioned knob turning. Their drummer is insanely good, the other Fiddleheads and I were pretty much watching him the whole time. They have really catchy beats and they are all multi-talented musicians. After their set we got some chances to hang out with them over the course of the rest of the night, really nice bunch of guys and I think Fiddlehead will be playing with them in the future.

Blue Boy Productions was up after Lespecial, another dub step group. Their beats had Fiddlehead's Mike Strakus rolling around on the floor staring at the lasers. Really talented duo combining computer generated effects with live drumming. By the time Blue Boy got up, the whole dance floor was filled with all sorts of people, from scantily clad girls to aging hippies. Combined with the light show, this group was awesome.

The party kept cranking until about 6 AM when the final band took off and the music pretty much stopped. It only stopped for about six hours though, at about noon, Mike Strakus and Tim Johnson got up and started jamming out. Kevin Maestranzi, the other Fiddlehead member left, played Kaossilator and then jammed out on guitar a bit. They played for a few hours and then we decided it was about time to pack up and head out. Lespecial and Black Light Ruckus played another show nearby that night as we were just getting back to Salem. Unforgettable party, people will be talking about it for years!