BOSTON (AP) -- A Boston man has been held on $500,000 bail after pleading not guilty to murder in connection with a fatal stabbing at a party in the early morning hours of New Year's Day.

Prosecutors say 24-year-old Brian MacDonald stabbed 21-year-old Anthony Spaulding during a brawl at Spaulding's Allston apartment at about 2:45 a.m. Tuesday. The argument was sparked, authorities say, after Spaulding asked revelers to quiet down.

MacDonald had gone to the party with his girlfriend, an invited guest.

Police found MacDonald by following a trail of blood in the snow from a cut on his hand.

Spaulding, from Harwich, was a student at the New England Institute of Art.

MacDonald's lawyer says the slaying was "self-defense or manslaughter."

It was Boston's first homicide of 2013 after 58 in 2012.