Oft-high, oft-married, oft-wife-beating soul maverick
Case History: Turner's father was murdered by a racist mob when Ike was 4; a violent stepfather set a pattern Ike would grow to imitate. He bigamously married Tina Turner and totally controlled her life for 10 years. Before she left him in 1976, he had hit her, poured hot coffee on her face, burned her lips with cigarettes and made her perform while sick and pregnant. Turner estimates he spent $11 million on cocaine over 30 years. He has been married at least 13 times.
Crazy Moment: Used to spend $36,000 a day filling champagne buckets with cocaine and letting visitors to his Los Angeles home help themselves.
He's So Crazy: "I did a lot of wrong things, but I don't think I'm a bad person."
19. Daniel Johnston
Totally sane singer-songwriter…when he remembers his medication
Case History: When he stayed on his meds, singer-songwriter Johnston warbled sweet off-key pop songs backed by piano or acoustic guitar. When he went off them, the pudgy Texan was prone to erratic behavior. In 1986, he was tossed in jail for attacking a friend with a lead pipe; Hi, How Are You?, the self-produced tape that made him famous, was recorded during a full-blown nervous breakdown.
Crazy Moment: On a plane in 1990, Johnston freaked out and grabbed the controls, convinced that his father, who was piloting it at the time, was — guess who? — Satan.
He's So Crazy: "A lot of my other selves walked out of my body and did a lot of things I was surprised at."
18. Liza Minnelli
Gay icon, queer marriage
Case History: The daughter of pill-popping icon Judy Garland has herself spent a fair share of time in the valley of the dolls. She has tickled the tabloids with an impressive spurt of bizarre episodes, notably her wedding to latex-faced David Gest. The show-stopper was Gest's $10 million lawsuit against Minnelli that ended their marriage — during which, he claims, she maintained sobriety only long enough to beat him.
Crazy Moment: While performing onstage in 1978, Minnelli spotted Marlene Dietrich in the audience. She bent to kiss Dietrich's hand, realized the woman was a Dietrich look-alike, panicked and got "Marlene's" finger stuck up her nose.
She's So Crazy: "I, Liza Minnelli, take thee, David Gest…"
17. Jim Gordon
Wrote "Layla." Killed mother
Case History: Gordon was a session drummer who cowrote "Layla" with Eric Clapton — and was schizophrenic to boot. Voices in his head commanded him to eat just one mouthful of food a meal; he cracked his second wife's ribs for bringing evil spirits into the house. In June 1983, Gordon killed his mother by hitting her with a hammer and stabbing her, and was sentenced to 16 years to life for second-degree murder.
Crazy Moment: Recording with Johnny Rivers in 1977 , Gordon glared at guitarist Dean Parks. "You're messing with my time," Gordon said. "You're moving my hands. I want you to stop it."
16. Sun Ra
Where did the jazz maestro learn to play piano? Saturn!
Case History: The former Herman Blount and his Arkestra were major influences in free jazz. Ra claims to have received messages from "unknown forces" when he was 3, leading him to work with "the dark things of the cosmos, which are beyond black." Ra taught a class at the University of California at Berkeley, whose reading list included several books that apparently didn't exist. He once visited the United Nations demanding to speak to the person in charge.
Crazy Moment: Claimed to be from the planet Saturn.
15. Roky Erickson
Psychedelic icon who gets sent songs by dead people
Case History: The founder of one of the first American psychedelic bands, the Thirteenth Floor Elevators. Busted for possession of six joints in 1969, Erickson pled insanity rather than serve jail time and was placed in the Rusk State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Austin, Texas, for three-and-a-half years. It was there, feasting on a steady diet of electroshock therapy and Thorazine, that the schizophrenic Erickson wrote a book of poetry and formed a band with fellow inmates. In the late '90s, he lived in a federally subsidized house in Texas, with radios and TVs on at all times to drown out the voices.
Crazy Moment: Signed an affidavit in 1982 declaring that a Martian had taken over his body.
14. Jaz Coleman
The Killing Joke frontman fears the apocalypse. We fear him
Case History: The Killing Joke frontman fled to Iceland in 1982 in fear of the apocalypse, but merely ended up working with the Sugarcubes before returning to England. Coleman has conducted interviews entirely in his own made-up language, and once taped a journalist's mouth shut for asking silly questions. He's also composer-in-residence for New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, whose conductor hails him as "the new Mahler."
Crazy Moment: Coleman bribed the Egyptian minister of culture to allow Killing Joke to record part of their Pandemonium album in the Great Pyramid.
He's So Crazy: "I'm a dangerous man. Fuck off."
13. Courtney LoveWithout her, Crazy Pop Star Monthly would be a much quicker read
Case History: Dementia is Love's old friend, from her snorting heroin at the site of Nancy Spungen's death to marrying Kurt Cobain while wearing lobotomized actress Frances Farmer's clothes. A drug binge (and attendant outbursts) led to the loss of custody of her and Cobain's only child, Frances Bean. Her Web postings, indecipherable on good days, can veer toward gibberish.
Crazy Moment: Recently OD'ed, called paramedics and then invited her daughter to share the special mother-and-child moment.
She's So Crazy: Commenting on drug charges: "[The situation is] retarded…I didn't even shoplift!"
12. Kevin Rowland
Hello, dresses. Good-bye, career
Case History: Rowland was the uncompromising Dexys Midnight Runners frontman who banned booze and drugs and insisted that the band get up early in the morning to go jogging. In 1991, he declared himself bankrupt and spent his days bedridden, snorting cocaine under his sheets, before briefly joining a religious cult. In 1999, he reemerged with a new image that usually included wearing a dress and white panties.
Crazy Moment: Rowland stole the master tapes to Dexys' debut album to get a better deal with the band's label. When the producer threw himself in front of the getaway van, Rowland urged the driver, "Accelerate, and damn the consequences!"
He's So Crazy: "To me, it makes perfect sense to wear a dress."
11. Adam Ant
There's nothing "new" or "romantic" about waving a gun around, mister
Case History: The New Romantic leading light has suffered lifelong bouts of depression. He attempted suicide when he was 21. In January 2002, when drinkers in a London pub laughed at his cowboy hat, Ant snapped. He left the premises in a huff, returning later to throw a car alternator through the window and wave a fake revolver around. Was subsequently confined to a mental hospital.
Crazy Moment: When Adam and the Ants played London in 1981, Ant insisted that roadies sprinkle every seat in the theater with lavender water, because that's what the Georgians did.
He's So Crazy: "They're jut out to get me. I'm not mad."
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