The cinder blocks that Kurian and The 3rd moved inside were used to make a station for the DJ. Because a traditional table wouldn't work. Because the bass causes regular tables to rattle all over the place each time there's a big hit in the music.

The turntables had to be encased in flight tape, a foam composite that helps reduce the shaking even more. Because 800 pounds of cast concrete and cinder isn't enough. These are things learned empirically.

The first time they held a show at Engine Room, the mirrors in the bathroom vibrated so violently that they shattered. They know to take them off beforehand now.

At a smaller spot called GRAB Bar (now closed), lightbulbs that had been slightly loosened to darken the room shook until they either screwed themselves back in or fell all the way out. Everything gets tightened or removed before the shows now.

At Fox Hollow, a gastropub in the Heights, liquor bottles were shaken clean off the shelves. A heads-up is given now.

There are more stories, so there are more precautions.

The show today will be a small one, a last-minute free party thrown together for those that didn't trek down to Austin's SXSW. A full-fledged Gritsy gathering can draw 1,200-plus; this one, they're expecting 200.

Still, setup takes nearly eight hours.

And even that won't be enough.
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In 2006, while influential English DJ/journalist Mary Anne Hobbs was breaking dubstep to the substantial listening audience of her BBC Radio 1 show, Suraj Kurian was already DJing dubstep shows in Houston.

By then he had been an EDM DJ for ten years, focusing the bulk of his effort on the drum and bass offshoot. When he heard dubstep the first time, his brain immediately had an inkling it could grow into something great. His testicles, however, needed to be convinced.

"At first, I didn't have the balls to go after it," remembers Kurian. "I remember sitting there talking to my roommate like, 'This music is amazing. It's so easy to digest.'

"After a while, I was like, 'Fuck it. I don't care. If we lose money, we lose money. I wanna do something I'm personally going to enjoy.'"

Shortly thereafter, Gritsy, then a three-man operation, began throwing parties.

"On a national scale, Houston is one of the oldest dubstep cities in America," says 12th Planet, a Los ­Angeles-based DJ recently described by LA Weekly as "the DJ and producer responsible for bringing the emerging electronic strain of dubstep to America." "Gritsy has been going hard for six years without any corporate help."

Gritsy became more and more ambitious. Eventually, they began reaching out to the European DJs. Soon enough, the DJs were talking back. And then they were coming to town.

They booked major acts from other countries, including Tunnidge, an underground legend in Europe, New Zealand super duo Truth, and London's Mala, among the most important and influential characters in all of dubstep.

"Mala is...[deep breath]," says Kurian. "He's kind of like what Bob Dylan is to rock and roll. When he came, we were, like, following him around, kissing the ground he walked on [laughs]. I mean, not really, but you get the point. It was huge."

"No lie, Gritsy in Houston and Mad Classy in Austin are on my list of favorite places to play in the world," says Mala. "They care deeply about the music, the artists they book and their audience. I have seen Suraj and Lea [Scott, Gritsy's social media/production person] in three different countries; they make an effort to travel and see how the music is in different parts of the world.

"They make sure proper sound systems are provided for [the] artist to play on. Their care and attention to details make a massive difference to everything and everyone."

Gritsy grew as dubstep grew. When Americans began making proper noise, they pulled them in, too.

They booked Matty G., one of the earliest hip-hop/dubstep advocates. They booked 12th Planet. They booked Joe Nice, the Baltimore DJ who founded the first dubstep club night in America (New York's Dub War) and is considered by many to be the genre's ambassador to foreign affairs.

They booked more and their reputation grew. Gritsy was credited with being among the first in the nation to establish a recurring dubstep party, a grassroots campaign counted as integral as New York's Dub War, L.A.'s Smog, Denver's Sub.mission and Miami's Basshead.

And then dubstep broke in America.
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Recently, a DJ playing a show at Southern California EDM festival Beyond Wonderland received death threats via Facebook when she spliced dubstep into a trance-music set. But while dubstep has certainly faced disdain from those outside of its still-narrow purview, most of the chastising comes from within the genre itself.