OFF: two questions

[John McIntyre]

Nick Medford wrote:

> So presumably named after the late and very thanatoid Rev Jones out in
> Guyana. Psychic TV released an album that claimed to be recordings of the
> "Last Supper".... recall poring over this ghoulish item in a shop before
> deciding I really *didn't* need this stuff... has anyone here actually heard
> this record?

Not the Psychic TV album, no, but I suspect their source was a radio show that I

did tape.  It was twenty years ago, so my memories are a bit confused so please
make allowances.  There were two competing books written about Jonestown.
One served as the basis for the TV movie.  The author of the other book produced

a radio show on National Public Radio that was made from tapes Jim Jones had
made of many services including the Last Supper.  (The author got the tapes from

the government through the Freedom of Information Act.)  Concrete Blonde used
a segment as the intro to their song "Jonestown."

In the early eighties I was in an electronic band called Totentanz.  (The local
paper
reviewed us as "The perfect wedding band - for the Bride of Frankenstein." (-8)
I went through the Jonestown tape and extracted bits of laughter onto a cassette

tape until I had about four minutes.  I would then play the tape through my
effects
chain for further mutations.  Yeah, kinda sick.  I'm so sick that I even have
one of
Jones's pre-Jonestown albums, but it's nothing special, just sermonettes with
organ
music interludes.  The guy who owned it didn't want it in his store and was
happy
to give it to me.

The scary thing about the Jonestown tapes is they make it quite clear how far
gone
Jones was.  And still people did as he told them to.

John McIntyre
Physics - Astronomy Domine Dept
Michigan State University
mcintyre at pa.msu.edu