Echo Park at KCRW's Halloween Costume Ball

It just keeps getting better.  I’m talking about KCRW’s now 3rd annual Halloween Masquerade Ball at the Park Plaza Hotel.

It's an important fundraiser for the station, and it sold out early on.

I’ve attended them all. So has Echo Park photographer Gary Leonard, who took the accompanying photos.

I didn’t expect anything to top last year’s DJ set by Henry Rollins.

This time, Moby did. He turrned up as a last–minute special guest and blew up the second floor of the historic hotel with his deep house DJ set.

Said Travis Holcombe, a KCRW DJ and Echo Park resident, in an email, "It felt like a 90s rave in that room while he was playing."

And, yes, it did, underscoring the new nature of KCRW's core demographic.

COSTUMES ARE KILLER

Costume wearing and making also hit a new high--perhaps because of the online contest new this year.

A disproportionate number of one-percenters were in sight, along with several Conrad Murrays and a lot of ladies in 1980s lycra workout duds.  

See the KCRW Facebook page to see costumes from the night.

Travis Holcombe wasn’t the only Echo Park DJ at the event.

Two other Echo Park residents, Marion Hodges and Dan Wilcox were also selecting.

Hodges, fittingly, rocked the downstairs bar at the hotel in a room dubbed “The Gold Room” for the night.

ECHO PARK'S OTHER GOLD ROOM

Hodges—a big fan of Echo Park's --has lived in the area since 2006. She hosted the dance party Hungry Beat at Pehrspace for a time.

She told us her favorite musical moment that night would come when she played Echo and the Bunnymen’s “The Killing Moon.”

Travis Holcombe also did his set in the Gold Room stage, following Henry Rollins.

He said he was particularly thrilled to be playing the early Otis Redding and the Pinetoppers hit "Shout Bamalama."

(Ed: Holcombe, by the way, will also be the new booker at the   in Silver Lake.)

Dan Wilcox was the third Echo Park local who DJed Saturday.  

We caught him before his set:  he said he loves the area around the Silver Lake Reservoir—especially the Meadow—and Sunset Junction, where goes for ice cream with his two-year-old.

Wilcox was particularly excited about a new re-mix of Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” he would be playing.

ECHO PARK EVERYWHERE

Behind the scenes, there was Echo Park presence too.

's Mitchell Frank--also chair of the Echo Park Chamber of Commerce--co-produced the night.

Anywhere you turned, he  was wrangling  and trouble-shooting they way you'd expect of a deeply-involved producer.

Echo Park's Dengue Fever also stopped by to perform a set.

And click here to see more photos of the night here on the KCRW website.