Here’s a few more that might have made the top 50:
-Sid Vicious kills Nancy Spungen, gets out on bail, then dies of a heroin overdose
-Jefferson Airplane plays a show in Germany; Grace Slick, drunk out of her gourd, mumbles incoherently and starts calling the audience Nazis. The crowd begins to leave.
-Madonna is being interviewed by Kurt Loder. Courtney Love, drunk as a skink, crashes the interview. Madonna gracefully leaves, Courtney falls off a stool.
-Lou Reeds “White Noise” album (is this the name?)
-Bob Dylan’s mid to late 70s “Jesus” period
How about some more?
I think you probably mean “Metal Machine Music” - a double album full of feedback. It is sometimes claimed that it arose out of a contract dispute with RCA. Held to his contract to produce records for them, he deliberately delivered them something they couldn’t market, billed as avant-garde “art”.
I would’ve though Syd Barrett (the original ‘leader’ of Pink Floyd) would be guaranteed a spot on that list. Some of those ‘meltdowns’ are pretty tame in comparison to his.
In addition to copious amounts of drugs, mental illness, and public incoherence, Barrett’s meltdown ended up completely changing the course of the band. Perhaps they still would have gone on to great success with Barett on board, but I’m confident their sound would have developed very differently. And there certainly never would have been an album called Wish You Were Here, which is one of my favorites.
Umm, Sid allegedly killed Nancy. There had been some standard weird druggies in and out of the room that night. The actual truth will probably never be known.
Sheesh, those pages take a long time to load! Stupid ads…
The whole Keith Moon and the Lincoln Continental in the swimming pool story is just that, a story. It’s a great rock legend, but it never happened. Keith Moon made it up. He did have a wild birthday party, but no cars ended up in the swimming pool that night, and the Who was never really banned from the Holiday Inn. Tony Fletcher covered all this in his excellent biography of Moon. I’m surprised Rolling Stone didn’t bother to do a little fact checking.
Several items on their list I wouldn’t qualify as “meltdowns”, like Jewel’s book of poetry. I’m sure it sucked, but she was probably in her right mind, and it was a bestseller.
My offerings:
The Who’s original tour in support of Quadrophenia was plagued by technical difficulties. Pete Townshend responds by flipping out on stage and attacking sound man Bobby Pridden. Quadrophenia is not performed live in its entirety until more than 20 years later.
After a nasty confrontation with a biker at show, Iggy Pop says on the radio that the whole motorcycle gang is welcome to come to the Stooges’ next concert and do their worst. They do. Pop, apparently suffering from a death wish, spends most of the evening baiting the hostile crowd. He survives, but the band doesn’t. That was their last show.
If you want a real Keith Moon breakdown, try the time he took horse tranquilizers right before a show in L.A., passed out behind his drum kit, and was replaced by some random guy from the crowd.
VH-1 did a thing about this subject a couple of years ago, and the Grace Slick-drunk-Germany-show was on it. I was embarrassed by it, 20+ years later, thousands of miles away, in my living room, having no personal connection in any way shape or form. I can’t imagine what she feels like about it.
Seems like Jim Morrison got pretty shitfaced one night and supposedly passed out in concert, But, not before offering several of his groupies and the cops a piece of meat.
Skip Spence trying to attack some of his bandmates in Moby Grape with an axe and spending six months in Bellvue didn’t make it? Recording the classic Oar album after his release, and the album’s massive failure when it was first released? The rest of Skip’s troubled life?
How about the massive PR blitz that backfired when Moby Grape’s record company put out so many singles at once during the release of their first album?
Or the Brinsley Schwarz press junket to the Fillmore East that backfired.
But the Rod Stewart urban legend did? Metallica cutting their hair once they sold out?
Rob Sheffield: dumber than advertised. No wonder Rolling Stone sucks these days.
Well, I didnt make up RS list, but yeah, I agree that there were some questionable entries! Metallica cutting off their hair would rank below Lars going after Napster, and even that was a coldly calculated business move and not a breakdown, or a “bizarre moment”.
Heres some more of mine:
-American Bandstand: PiL, featuring Johnny Rotten lip syncing one of his songs- except that he totally would not lip synch it, and instead danced with the crowd while the song played.
-I cant believe the bassist from Rage Against the Machine hijacking the . . um . . which awards show was it? by sitting on a set piece and refusing to come down.
-Punker Wayne Manitoba advertsing that he would kill himself on stage- then chickening out.
The funniest story doesn’t even involve a ‘rock’ performer. I am still laughing at the thought of George Jones zipping down the highway on a John Deere.
By the way, would Elvis’ shooting his TV count or is that just a story too? I heard that he did it when Robert Goulet was singing on a show - which may have been a perfectly sane act.
As for “Two Virgins” by John and Yoko, there was an even worse breakdown in 1969 when he attempted to screen a film of his own penis - named “Self Portrait” in Cannes. Also his auctioning off his own hair to raise money for a “British Black Panther Party” around the same time rivals that.
John Lennon signs autograph for fan, is gunned down by him hours later.
Sam Phillips is politely kicked off the Letterman show (by Letterman himself…ON THE AIR) after rambling incoherently for several minutes. This was 1983 or so.
Any given Kinks concert during the 1970s which ended in drunken fistfights between the Davies brothers.
In country music circles, the George Jones/lawn mower story is legendary. He evens spoofs it in a Vince Gill video, “One More Last Chance”. He and Gill cross each others paths, Gill riding on a tractor and Jones riding on his lawn mower.
In the magazine it’s the 50 most bizarre moments in rock. I don’t know why they changed the title for the website since it’s (probably mostly at least) the same article. Jewel’s poetry doesn’t qualify as a breakdown, for instance (nor IMHO as a truly bizarre moment).
I’ll definitely second Syd Barrett. He’s a walking anti-drug PSA nowadays.
Also, since when does TLC or Lisa Lopes have anything, at all, in any way, shape or form, to do with rock?
Brian Jones’ downward spiral and death would seem to qualify, as would Kurt Cobain’s end.
One of the hilarious moments in VH-1’s show (which I think was the most shocking moments in music, or some such) was Bjork attacking a reporter at some event, and I don’t mean verbally, I mean charging, scratching, hair-pulling. Bizarre and amusing.
What about a drunken Elvis Costello spouting off racist epithets about Ray Charles to Stephen Still’s band, and getting cold-cocked by a female backup singer.
And nothing about GG Allin, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins shitting himself after he got trapped in his coffin on stage, the Clash firing Mick Jones (or releasing Sandinista :)), Pete Townsend impaling his hand on his whammy bar, the 2 Live Crew debacle in Miami…
