 Vinnie
describes his sound as “James Brown meets
Tito Puente at Bob Marley's Hip-Hop BBQ, with John
Coltrane on grill duty and Joao Gilberto as bartender.”
Award winning DJ Vinnie Esparza
has been a staple of San Francisco’s diverse
nightclub scene since 1994. He spins a variety of
styles, from jazz to hip hop and everything in between,
including 60s soul,
raw funk, Afro-Latin, Brazilian, reggae and club
classics. He can be heard regularly at many clubs throughout
the city including The Elbo Room, Milk, Amnesia and
Casanova. He has opened for such acts as Jimmy Smith,
Tito Puente, Greyboy All Stars, Eddie Palmieri, Jack
McDuff, Bebel Gilberto, and Jamiroqui. He was voted “Best
Local DJ” in the San Francisco Guardian’s “Best
of the Bay” readers poll in 2000, as well as “Best
Club DJ” in 2001’s City Search Poll. He
was also nominated twice in SF Weekly’s Music
Awards in 2002 and 2003.
Besides his DJ work, Vinnie is also co-founder of Dis-Joint
Records , whom he runs with his partner “Cool Chris” Veltri,
owner of the world renowned rare vinyl collector’s specialty shop The Groove
Merchant, in the city’s Lower Haight district. The label not only releases
club oriented music, but also reissues rare soul, funk, Latin and reggae on it’s
Re-Joint division.
Vinnie first broke into the music scene in 1990 while
working at UC Santa Cruz’s
radio station KZSC, where he served as music director between 1991 and his graduation
in 1994. While there he was awarded Gavin Magazine’s “College Radio
Music Director/Program Director of the Year Award” in
1994.
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