Mr. Fine Wine (real name: Matt Weingarden) is the host of the long-running Downtown Soulville show on New Jersey’s famous WFMU radio station. He’ll guest at the fourth anniversary of Title Town, the monthly soul-and-funk dance night at Brillobox.
You grew up in Detroit?
Yeah. I grew up in Detroit and I moved to New York about 25 years ago. I was always collecting records, but I started DJing when I moved.
Did your Detroit upbringing inform your musical tastes?
Yeah. I went to school with the children of David Ruffin and Eddie Kendrick and people like that; there was just music everywhere. My uncle owned a small label that put out a variety of music, from folk music to soul music to jazz. And he was a very in-demand local guitar teacher who taught people from John Lee Hooker to Don Was.
Soul nights have seen something of a revival since you started. When did that really take off?
In the last 10 years or so, you can hear soul records practically any night of the week [in New York City]. Not that the parties are all necessarily any good.
What makes one night good as opposed to another?
It’s taste, I guess. I can be perfectly happy with one other person in the bar as long as the DJ has taste in music. It doesn’t even have to be rare stuff.
This article appears in Oct 9-15, 2013.
