We've spent much of the morning today trying to track down more information on what happened to Matthew Allen, the 19-year-old who died in an Irving hospital on Saturday morning after apparently using ecstasy while attending at Club Afterlife on Northwest Highway on late Friday night, but to very little avail.
The club's phone's are down, and their website and email system are straight out of '96. The Dallas Police Department has yet to return our phone calls on the matter, either.
Here's what we do know, though: Though the police are waiting on a toxicology report to determine Allen's cause of death, a friend of his told WFAA that he'd admitted to taking ecstasy pills earlier in the night. If true, Allen's death is the second ecstasy-related death in Dallas this summer, coming less than two months after 19-year-old Argyle resident Andrew Graf died of an apparent ecstasy overdose at the Electric Daisy Carnival back in June. And those are just the ones we know about.
This much is for certain: That's two deaths too many, even for the prominent and popular local electronic dance music scene.
Afterlife, an indoor/outdoor club located at 1819 W. Northwest Highway, is something of a mainstay on the more youth-oriented end of the area EDM spectrum, an after-hours weekend club that opens at 10 p.m. and stays open until 4 a.m., while catering to the 17-and-up market. Unnamed sources tell WFAA that the Dallas Police Department has been "keeping an eye" on minors using and selling drugs at Afterlife, which broadcast media types are once again referring to as a "rave" club. No word yet on if the DPD plans to increase their watch in the wake of this sad news.
In addition to the DPD and the people who run Afterlife, we've also reached out to a number of the DJs present at the club on Friday night, of which there were no fewer than 12, to get a feel for how, if at all, Friday felt different from a normal night at the venue. We'll keep you updated as we come across more information.
In the meantime, one more reminder: Don't be stupid at shows, especially in the summer.
