Better than a story about mix-tapes.
Any dedicated Scottish clubbers reading today? Good, because you will no doubt be familiar with the name of Pure. For the uninitiated,Pure was a legendary techno club which started in Edinburgh in 1990 and ran until 2007 (I think, but I could be wrong).

The punters at Pure were like a family, no other club could put on a night with 2000 dancing nutters, 3 dancefloors, in an unfamiliar city and still keep a strong snese of community. A few of the top DJs that
plied their trade at Pure include: Marshall Jefferson, Derrick May, Andy Weatherall, Orbital, David Holmes, Aphex Twin and a plethora of other musicologists with the God-given ability induce a fervour of melodic
euphoria.

Anyhow, apologies for the nostalgia-based digression. Being as I am just a young whippersnapper (in Edinburgh clubland terms anyway) I was only present for the tail-end of Pure's existence. Several of my nights at
Pure are just memory holes, but there is one occasion which is still reasonably clear in my mind.

3am had come and gone, resident DJs Twitch and Brainstorm rounded off their set and the bouncers were attempting to remove the stragglers from the club. Myself and a pal were attempting to glide up the street on
thought-activated metahoverboards, which used the earths magnetic field to hover inches above the ground (but our lower limbs had turned to glass and felt somewhat precarious). For those unable to read between the lines: we were rubbered on a cocktail of mind-bending drugs.

So we tapped into the energy of surrounding lay-lines, assessed the positions of the stars and charted a route to a friendly destination,
where we could partake in more substance abuse and cups of tea.

As we went to walk up the road we saw a figure sitting on the pavement with his back against the Venue, eyes closed. This was hardly a rare
sight after Pure, so we didn't think too much of it, but my compatriot gave the fellow a friendly tap with his foot and told him "You can't sleep there dude, the bizzies will pick you up and you'll wake up in the cells". He showed no signs of response, so we assumed he was in an MDMA stupor or down a K-Hole, informed the bouncers there was "some fucked
guy slepping against the wall" and wandered home.

Upon waking the next afternoon I made a cup of tea and sat down to smoke a bong, when my friend called me: "Did you hear about the guy that died at Pure last night?" So it turned out that the poor man we'd thought was simply asleep had actually passed away on a night out with his mates.

The actual details of what happened have become something of an urban legend: apparently he had a long-term illness and had an adverse reaction to his medication, causing him to go into shock, and rather than collapsing in the middle of the dancefloor he just walked outside, sat down on the pavement and just....... died. Of course, this is probably a romanticised version of the true events, which will have been lost through the chinese whispers of the Edinburgh club community.

I did suffer some pangs of guilt at not having done anything at the time, but it turned out he had sat there for several hours before the club finished, and had been dead for a long time when the paramedics were called.

Standard apologies for length and lack of funny.
(JasperSinister is offering two tickets to the gun show, Fri 29 Feb 2008, 12:56, Reply)