1. MICHAEL JACKSON INVITES HIS PLAYMATES TO SPEND THE NIGHT. Apparently, it never occurred to Jackson and many renowned advisers that it's one thing for a thirty-four-year-old man to dote on preteen and adolescent boys, quite another to sleep in the same bed with them.
2. MARVIN GAYE TELLS HIS FATHER WHAT HE REALLY THINKS. On April 1, 1984, Marvin informed his dad that he'd had enough of his s... and that he planned to f... him up. His father, Marvin Sr., replied by shooting him to death.
3. BUDDY HOLLY CONVINCES RITCHIE VALENS AND HE BIG BOPPER TO FLY AHEAD TO FARGO, TO GET THEIR LAUNDRY DONE. Actually, Buddy, Ritchie, and the Bopper had better reasons for trying to skip ahead of the rest of promoter Irving Feld's Winter Dance Party. For one thing, the heater on the tour bus didn't work; for another, they all needed some sleep. They found a lot more of it than they'd bargained for when their chartered prop plane smacked down in a cornfield just outside Clear Lake, Iowa, where they'd just played the Surf Ballroom. Others who've made similar errors include Lynyrd Skynyrd, whose plane crashed because it ran out of gas; Otis Redding, where bad weather may also have been the culprit; Stevie Ray Vaughan, who flew in a helicopter on a foggy night; Harry Chapin, who overestimated his own driving skills, despite a significant clue (his driver's license had been revoked); and Marc Bolan, who let his girlfriend drive.
4, JOHN LENNON MAKES ALLEN KLEIN THE REPLACEMENT FOR BRIAN EPSTEIN; GEORGE HARRISON AND RINGO STARR AGREE. Lennon once said that his pal Mick logger, who'd been involved with Klein for several years, told him "it's awfully hard to get your money." John took that to mean nothing more than that Klein kept his charges on a tight allowance. Eventually, even after Klein went to jail for selling copies of George Harrison's Bangladesh benefit album off the books, the Beatles regained control of their masters only after extensive, and expensive, litigation with Klein. The determination of Paul McCartney to avoid represented by Klein (he favored his brother-in-law John Eastman) broke up the band, killing the goose and the golden eggs that came with it in one fell swoop.
5. BILLY JOEL DIVORCES HIS WIFE-MANAGER, THEN DECIDES THE IDEAL REPLACEMENT WOULD BE HER BROTHER. It's one thing when Pat Benatar demolishes her career by insisting on having her husband Neil Geraldo produce her records It's another when Joel, having come out of a traumatizing divorce, decides the best possible choice to guide his career would be his ex-brother-in-law, Frank Webber, whose principal previous experience had been selling real estate. When the dust finally cleared, Joel alleged he was out millions and Webber went bankrupt, making them noncollectable.
6. MICK TAYLOR QUITS THE ROLLING STONES. Taylor, the guitarist who replaced Brian Jones, apparently concluded he'd acquired enough profile for a solo career after a doing a couple of tours and playing on Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street. He should have thought again, because while he never disappeared, Taylor never again came close to claiming anybody's full attention, either,
7. THE CLASH FIRE MICK JONES. For some bizarre reason, almost as soon as the world's premier punk band made its U.S. commercial breakthrough with "Rock the Casbah," singer Joe Strummer and bassist Paul Simonon decided they'd be better off without guitarist Mick Jones. Jones went on to nothing more than the reggafied mediocrity of Big Audio Dynamite. Strummer and Simonon, on the other hand, have yet to accomplish that much, either on their own or as the Clash. Unless there's a late nineties reunion tour in the offing, this qualifies as one of the biggest wastes in rock history. The parallel case (it even took place around the same time) saw the J. Geils Band fire frontman Peter Wolf, just as their career arced to the top. It descended far more rapidly than it had arisen when keyboardist Seth Justman, the new lead singer, proved he couldn't sing, a process that took all of an album.
8. PROFESSOR GRIFF GIVES AN INTERVIEW TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES. The Times, a right-wing Washington, D.C., newspaper, sent David Mills, a young black reporter, to query Griff, then Public Enemy's Minister of Information, about P.E.'s politics. Mills had heard Griff make anti-Semitic remarks at earlier speaking appearances, and without much prompting, Griff repeated them. The ugly, indefensible comments kicked off a farcical set of PR maneuvers that found Griff first fired then rehired, then fired again by P.E. leader Chuck D, Chuck D was blamed for what his sidekick said and for not getting rid of Griff quickly or decisively enough, Griff was never invited to defend himself by the major media outlets that attacked him, and P.E.'s career was virtually destroyed by the whole mess. At least it was a good career move for somebody, Mills wound up at The Washington Post, the respectable D.C. daily.
9. SLICK RICK DEALS WITH HIS COUSIN'S PERFIDY ALL BY HIMSELF. According to the story he told in court, Slick Rick found himself being exploited by his cousin, Mark Plummer So Rick shot Plummer, then tried to elude the cops in a high-speed chase that wound up with him crashing his Jeep, badly injuring himself, then being found guilty of attempted murder and be given a long jail sentence. Though Def Jam's Russell Simrm shrewdly got him out on bail long enough to stockpile a few albums worth of material, Slick Rick's career as one of the original street tough rappers closed out in consequence.
1O. OZZY OSBOURNE BITES A BAT. Actually, Ozzy didn't know he was biting off the head of a bat. He thought he'd been thrown a fake and bit its head off as a gag in the heat of a gig. The joke went down badly: He had to go through an extremely painful series of rabies shots. Ozzy did, however, deliberately bite the head off a dove at an Epic Records staff meeting, in an effort to make some sort of point now lost to history. These legends pursue him to this day, rendering ridiculous the career of one of heavy metal's most interesting record-makers.

More to come, From "The New Book Of Rock Lists" 1994