The Deep End

One Scene United and Culture Productions are on a mission — to bring back the glory days of the Edge, the long-defunct club now known as Revolution. Well, they've got the right venue onboard (that would be Revolution). And this Saturday, a former Edge DJ makes his return — Rich Pooley, AKA DJ R-Fresh.

Pooley started spinning at the Edge in the mid-'90s, after learning (through experience) that house music was where the party's at. "I started out as a Miami bass DJ — that's what I was playing in high school [in the late '80s]. But by 1990, it wasn't fun anymore," Pooley says of the booty music that dominated clubs at the time. "There's not much musically involved in that stuff. It's all kind of negative. There's nothing creative about it. I dropped out of hip-hop in '91. Then I started getting curious about the hard-core techno, the earlier drum 'n' bass stuff. 1993 is when I started going to rave-type events and discovered the house scene, breakbeats, trance. I was pretty much a club kid again."

But he was a club kid with a load of mixtapes, which Pooley released on his own Fresh Productions. And he knew just where to go to hand 'em out. "The Edge was my main stomping ground back then," Pooley says. "In '94, I got my first gig as a resident out back. I'd bring my mobile sound system out to the patio. I'd do that every weekend."

But, as a lifelong Boca Raton resident (until his recent move to Clermont, just outside Orlando), it was only a matter of time before Pooley took up a residency at Club Boca. His reign there lasted from '95 to '99 — the year Pooley first took his beats to Lima, Peru, where he still spins several times a year.

"The scene in Lima is like it used to be here," Pooley says. "The people are open-minded, and they have good sound systems."

And really, what else does a DJ need? DJ R-Fresh spins at 11 p.m. Saturday, June 24, at Revolution, 200 W. Broward Blvd., Fort Lauderdale. Admission costs $10. Call 954-727-0950.