Rock's wild things

They are renowned for depravity, calamity and insanity - not to mention the almost prerequisite overdose of sex and drugs.

Over the years rock has become synonymous with the extreme excesses of its most famous hell-raisers.

Whether it is Ozzy Osbourne's bat-biting, Liam Gallagher's fondness for mauling photographers or even the drug-fuelled demise of performers like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, crazed behaviour seems to come with the territory for musical superstars.

Now Q magazine has enlisted its experts to compile a list of the 100 most insane moments in rock, with Sir Paul McCartney's arrest in Japan on drugs charges, the breathtaking financial excesses of MC Hammer and the Happy Mondays' temporary editorship of an "adult" magazine all earning honourable mentions.

"It's pretty much the definitive word on the subject," said Q editor Paul Rees of his list - before conceding that his readers are bound to have some nominations of their own.

That musical stars often appear to be a cymbal short of the full drum kit is, perhaps, no surprise: the combination of huge financial reward, complete power over a doting entourage and the adoration of thousands is surely a recipe for bad, and mad, behaviour.