THE WEIRD (ER) SIDE OF ROCK AND ROLL
CHUCK NEGRON'S EXPLODING PENIS
CHUCK NEGRON (CENTER) WITH THREE DOG NIGHT
Back in the 1970s, the rock band Three Dog Night enjoyed several years of commercial success with a string of mainstream hits like "
Mama Told Me Not To Come" and "Never Been To Spain." Their chart-topping run was underscored by the usual array of rock and roll vices and issues, such as excessive womanizing, drug use, and financial snafus. But of all the problems which beset the band during their halcyon days, they are most famous for what happened to lead singer Chuck Negron's penis. Negron was apparently so prolific when it came to bedding groupies that his second most important organ became swollen and chafed, necessitating a visit to the doctor. After examining Negron's penis, the doctor told him that he would have to lay off sex for a while or there could be dire consequences. Unfortunately, being the rock and roll animal that he was, Negron refused to listen to the doctor's warning and continued his lothario ways, until, finally, whilst in the throes of lovemaking with an unnamed Miss America contestant, Negron heard a sudden "whooshing" sound as his overused joystick split down the middle ("like a hot dog", accordng to Negron). That was bad enough, but during the subsequent visit to the emergency room, Negron had to endure the titters and giggles of the hospital staff as they stitched up the maligned member. Now clean and sober for 17 years, having lost every penny he made with Three Dog Night to a drug habit even bigger than his sexual appetite, Negron says that he looks back on the experience with "some amusement."
SPEAKING FRANKLY, MAMA TOLD HIM NOT TO COME...
GHOSTLY BEATLES REUNION
PAUL, GEORGE, AND RINGO...AND POSSIBLY AN INVISIBLE JOHN
In 1995, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr went into the studio to record harmonies for an old John Lennon demo called "Free As A Bird", which was later released as a tribute to their late bandmate, who was murdered in 1980 by crazed fan Mark David Chapman. During the recording process, the surviving Beatles decided to add some backward tracking to the song, so that, in McCartney's words, "It would give all those Beatles nuts something to do." Imagine the trio's surprise when, on listening to the finished recording, the words "John Lennon" were clearly decipherable amid the otherwise unintelligible backward garble. Even spookier, when Paul, George, and Ringo posed outside the studio for a publicity shot, a white peacock wandered into the frame just as the photographer snapped the shutter. McCartney is convinced that the peacock was John. "It was like he was hanging around," he told one interviewer. "We felt that all through the recording."
JOHN LENNON: HE WAS THE WALRUS, BUT WAS HE A WHITE PEACOCK, TOO?
(BIZARRE) DEATH BY ROCK AND ROLL
On an otherwise uneventful day in September of 2010, Mike Edwards, former cello player for the English band ELO was driving his white Transit on a road near Kingsbridge in South Devon when a bale of hay (described by police as "cylindrical") rolled down a nearby hill, hurtled over a hedge, and hit Edwards' vehicle, sending it crashing into another van. The driver of the second van emerged unhurt from the incident, but the 62-year-old Edwards was killed instantly. And that's only one bizarre death in a long list of bizzare deaths in rock and roll.
In May of 1976, Keith Relf, former guitarist for the Yardbirds, was at his house in London rehearsing new material for an upcoming reunion album with his post-Yardbirds band, Renaissance, when he was electrocuted due to improper grounding of his guitar. Four years prior, Leslie Harvey, lead singer for Stone The Crows, was performing with his band at Swansea Top Rank when he grabbed an improperly grounded microphone with wet hands and was electrocuted in full view of the audience. And although not technically a rock and roll star, French musician and songwriter Claude Francois, who wrote the original version of "My Way", was electrocuted when he attempted to replace a light bulb whilst standing in a bathtub filled with water.
But lest you think that it's only bales of hay and bolts of electricty that are responsible for the deaths of rock and roll musicans, on April 23, 1991, Johnny Thunders (nee John Anthony Genzale, Jr.), founding member of the iconic New York punk band,
The Heartbreakers, was found dead at the St. Peter's House hotel in New Orleans in a room that had clearly been ransacked. Among the missing items were Thunders' passport, his makeup, and clothes. But it was the state of his corpse that sent shudders up the spines of those who knew him. Police who entered the room found Thunders' body lying underneath a coffee table, "twisted up like a pretzel." Witnesses who saw the body bag being removed from the hotel described its shape as "horrific." Even more mystifying, Thunders had been taking methadone in an effort o get off harder drugs, but the coroner said that the amount found in his system was "not lethal." Thunders' manager, Mick Webster tried to convince the police to open a criminal investigation, but they refused. "They couldn't have cared less. To them, it was just one more junkie who had wandered into town and died," Webster said bitterly.
JOHNNY THUNDERS: LIVED HARD AND DIED...LIKE A PRETZEL.
That's it for now...from beyond the pale.
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