DISGRACELAND

At the height of their world-changing and culture-defining popularity, the Beatles faced death threats in foreign countries, an unfair tax rate in their own country that forced them to stash heaps of undeclared cash in brown paper bags, and the sudden suicide of their manager. But none of this could break up the band. Nor could LSD smuggling missions, drug busts, extramarital affairs or the derang...

The Beatles caused fans to enter into manic states, literally. People died because of it. The band swallowed more pills than food in their early years. They took acid by accident and changed the course of popular music forever as a result. Aside from all the screaming fans and the drugs, beating at the heart of Beatlemania was always just “a great little band.” Listen to learn how the...

Sniffing glue, hooking for drug money, hurling rocks at the Beatles, and writing infectious sunshiny melodies about their grimy reality, the Ramones were what the world needed in 1976. As rock ‘n’ roll was getting bloated with excessive experimentation and unfortunate forays into disco, four cretins from Queens stripped it all away to two-minute three-chord anthems with hard, fast back...

No musical artist better personified the hedonism of the ’70s than David Bowie. He captivated the imaginations of music fans all over the world with a dizzying array of creative alter egos; Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust and the Thin White Duke among them, and his obsession with occultist Aleister Crowley drove him down a dark, excessive hole filled with cocaine, orgies, arrests, fascism, death a...

In part two of the Tupac Shakur story, we see the young star trying to deal with life behind bars and giving in to the patronage of the notorious Suge Knight of Death Row Records while getting into the mud with the Notorious B.I.G. in a deadly game of East Coast West Coast beef. We also get a glimpse of what Tupac Shakur might have achieved had he not gone to Las Vegas on that fateful night back i...

Tupac Shakur was many things. He was a supremely talented MC and was wildly charismatic in front of the camera. He was also violent, angry and completely unable to keep himself out of trouble. Part one of his story traces his rise through the radical influence of his Black Panther lineage, the deadly violence that seemed to follow him wherever he went, and the inevitability of both prison and supe...

Gram Parsons is one of the most influential musicians in rock ‘n’ roll that you’ve maybe never heard of. He created a form of music that has been copied by everyone from the Eagles to Ryan Adams. He directly influenced the Rolling Stones’ greatest album, possibly the greatest rock ‘n’ roll album of all time,  Exile on Main Street . And when he died his body was stolen and unceremoniously disposed...

Chuck Berry was imprisoned numerous times. He was a victim of violent systemic racism and accused of horrific acts of sexual depravity. He also invented rock ‘n’ roll. Chuck Berry was as complex a character as he was influential as a musician. Throughout his career he found himself in numerous dust ups with authorities; some of them justified, most of them not. And through it all, whet...

Selena Quintanilla Pérez ushered in the Golden Age of Tejano music in Texas with a meteoric rise up the charts and into the hearts of her fans. Her fans saw her as more than just a pop star — she was family. Selena was about to take her fame and her family to the world stage when a tangled web of deceit, betrayal, and jealousy would result in her untimely death at 23. To view the full...

The Misfits were truly unique. Scary. Violent. Angry. Nihilistic. These words can easily describe not only their music, but also the band as people, particularly frontman Glenn Danzig. Rumored to have been arrested for grave robbery, locked up abroad and inciting riots here in the States, the Misfits blazed a path of annihilation trading on fictional B-movie and scandal rag imagery to create one o...

Bootlegging whiskey, acid tests, grass, and songs about murder. The origins of the Grateful Dead are fascinating and not what most people think. Born out of the tradition of “old, weird America”; bluegrass, jug band music and deadly folk tales, the Grateful Dead, as young adults, were into some strange stuff and we are all better for it. The band would go on to create their very own &l...

Chet Baker, with his natural talent, unique voice and beautiful looks was known as “the James Dean of Jazz.” He was also a savage junkie and part time criminal. A one of a kind musician, his soft singing style and romantic playing enraptured Hollywood, the jazz world, and Europe. However, violence, crime, and drugs led to numerous prison stints and to one of the most mysterious deaths in music. Wh...

Ice-T stoked the wrath of the President of the United States, led the life of a successful jewel thief, ran with one of LA’s most notorious street gangs, the Crips, and was a soldier in the US Army. Along the way, he invented gangsta rap. But it wouldn’t be rap music that would threaten his career—it would be hardcore music, particularly the song “Cop Killer” from his punk band, Body Count. To vie...

The Establishment strikes back in this second installment of the Rolling Stones time in Swinging London. UK pop star Donovan is busted, a precursor to the Stones Redlands bust. Mick Jagger is in jail looking at hard time. The tabloids and the coppers are in league to bring down the disruptive Rolling Stones while the myth of Keith Richards is born. To view the full list of contributors, see the sh...

London was swinging. Keith Richards was in jail. The Kray Twins were menacing about. Brian Jones was on too much LSD. Aristocrats were tripping over themselves to hang out with the Rolling Stones. England was smitten. The London Establishment was freaking out and the Stones’ manager wanted to know one thing: Would you let your daughter marry a Rolling Stone? To view the full list of contributors,...

Few pop artists achieved the dizzying creative and career highs that Prince did. An artist who famously stayed away from drugs and most anything that would cause him to lose control, Prince was aided in his legendary musical output by a small army of creative alter egos, who helped him maintain control and helped him reign supreme as one of the greatest pop musicians of all time, until of course,...

In the late seventies, Studio 54 was the place to be for musicians and celebrities alike. John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen and others all famously hung out at the notorious club where hedonism was part of the venue’s allure. The success of Studio 54 was sudden and massive, resulting in mountains of cash, cocaine, jealousy, revenge, an FBI raid, and an ironic endin...

Nipsey Hussle was more than just one of this generation’s most promising voices in hip hop. He was a social activist, a community leader, and an aspirational entrepreneur. His death was senseless and set off grief-stricken testimonials from some of the biggest names in hip hop as well as from some of the biggest names in our culture – period. It also set off a riot in the streets of Lo...

Ozzy Osbourne, along with his bandmates in Black Sabbath, invented heavy metal, and throughout Ozzy’s post-Sabbath solo career he would invent new, self-destructive forms of sabotage. Arrested at an early age for breaking and entering, Ozzy Osbourne refused to conform to societal norms and common decency. He would go on to be arrested numerous times and escape too many near-death experiences...

Run DMC is directly responsible for elevating hip hop to previously unimagined heights. They took rap music into an entirely different direction and helped mainstream the genre. They were beloved as musicians, innovators, and people – none more than their DJ, Jason “Jam Master Jay” Mizell, which makes understanding his senseless murder near impossible. Who killed Jam Master Jay a...

Joe Exotic, the gun toting, mullet wearing, polyamorous subject of the hit Netflix series Tiger King was more than just a murder-minded conman. He could sing! You saw those videos. We did too. As a singer, Joe’s voice belied the tortured Everyman experience of some of the best country music crooners, hinting at deep trauma resulting from unspeakable loss, assault and violence. Most of which...

(This is a bonus April Fools’ episode of Disgraceland that is satire and not true crime.) John Denver was a one of the biggest stars of the Seventies. His easy listening mainstream folk and his squeaky clean, environmentally friendly image made him a favorite in homes all across America. But was John Denver hiding a dark secret? One born of a mysterious military upbringing? A secret he would...

Little Richard is the originator. Without him it’s hard to imagine the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Elton John or even Led Zeppelin. He blazed a trail through popular culture that previous to him did not exist. His music was completely original for the time, the essence of rock ‘n’ roll, filled with impassioned energy, fueled at times by large quantities of drugs and always brimming...

Jay Z’s career defies easy categorization. His artistry and business sense are as influenced by his past career as a drug dealer as they are anything else. Jay Z has reached unprecedented heights as an entertainer and an entrepreneur, and it almost never happened. All because of a stabbing. A stabbing that was influenced by that same street hustle that created “Jay Z."   To see th...

Post Appetite For Destruction, Guns N’ Roses embodied the word “dysfunction." As the band prepared for their follow up release, singer Axl Rose was losing a very public battle with the press while heroin and alcohol threatened to completely derail the band. Axl’s “recovered memories” continued to fuel his erratic behavior and thus he continued to drive his band closer...