When rock stars go ape shit

I'm delighted to report that I finally found my copy of Q Magazine's "When Rock Stars Go Crazy" issue. I thought I had lost it, but it turns out it was just buried underneath a pile of crap in my closet. Who knows what else is entombed in there—perhaps some money or good meds. Maybe I should check it out. Anyway, I thought all two or three of you might enjoy some more stories of rockin' debauchery straight from the Brits. And, yes, in case you were wondering the Euronymous murder slid in at number three, after Michael Jackson's wacked-out HIStory promotion and—what else?—Rick Wakeman's staging of "King Arthur" on ice. Rock.

• Chris Farlowe was a Londoner who boasted several R&B hits under his belt in the '60s and '70s, including a popular cover of the Stones' "Out of Time", and could have been Rod Stewart before Rod Stewart became Rod Stewart. But you've probably never even heard of him and here's the reason why: in '72 he quit the music biz altogether to open a collectables shop and trade business called Regimentals. What did he collect and trade, you ask? Why, nazi memorabilia, of course! After all, it's the logical route for a former R&B singer, right?

• Pete de Freitas, late drummer for Echo & the Bunnymen, once went on a bender so hardcore he claimed to have not slept for 18 straight days, besting even quintessential binger Keith Richards. Petey later said of the incident, "Looking back, I think I went a bit mad in the head."

• Jimmy Page is a pure genius. And as we all know from reading this website, along with genius often comes a whole lotta crazy. Jimmy was famously into black magic and became more than a little obsessed with notorious occultist Aleister Crowley, going as far as to buy Boleskine House, Crowley's mansion o' evil located on the mystical shores of Loch Ness. What went on there is anyone's guess, but the lunacy is said to include regular rituals complete with blood drinking, living groupie altars and veritable shitstorm of drug use. Jimmy's also a Crowley collector and is the proud owner of the largest collection of Crowley's books in the world. Witchy genius, he is.

• Damn, it feels good to be a gangster with one eye that was blasted out by a girlfriend after she followed your instructions to shoot you in the head. In 1991, diminutive Geto Boy Bushwick Bill downed a bottle of 190-proof Everclear, then got all suicidal and told his girlfriend to shoot him in the head. She did, but only succeeded in maiming his right eye. Wanna see it? Check out the cover of their "We Can't Be Stopped" album, which features Bushwick being rolled through the hospital with the shredded, bloody remnant of his eyeball on full display for the world to see.

• It's all good fun at Dennis Wilson's house until Manson shows up and starts spreading cooties all over the place. The "squeaky-clean" Beach Boy became so taken with the crazy-eyed cult leader that he invited him to move into his house in the late '60s. Wilson's wife didn't like that too much and started covering toilet seats around the house so the kids wouldn't get some dirty hippie disease. But she just didn't get it—Manson was not a delusional mental patient so much as he was a misunderstood genius. The Manson-penned tune "Cease To Exist" appears on the Beach Boys' 20/20 album, no doubt an ode to that crazy summer he spent at Denny's house.