These performances have not been heard since the nights they were played more than 40 years ago ! [3][4][5] By his own account, between 1965 and 1967, Stanley produced at least 500 grams of LSD, amounting to a little more than five million doses. Vandoliers Play Tennessee Concert in Dresses to Protest State's New Drag Bill The Point Richmond lab turned out more than 300,000 tablets (270 micrograms each) of LSD, dubbed "White Lightning". See Tom Taylor's account of his life and times published late last year in Far Out magazine. Along with other recognition of your generous contribution, if the recording you select is viable for future release by OSF, you will receive a liner note credit. Neither one of them really wanted to be parents, he says. Three years ago, he underwent extensive radiation for throat cancer, losing thirty pounds in the process. The police were looking for methamphetamine but found only LSD, which was not illegal at the time. Died at age 76 in an automobile accident. He beat the charges and successfully sued for the return of his equipment. The world would be, like, over. I lost control of that cell as well, Owsley says. Almost before I realized what was happening, the whole affair had gotten completely out of hand. Ego death. campaign seeks to raise money to enable the digitization, preservation, and release of Bear's Sonic Journals, a trove of over a thousand live concert recordings from the heart of the psychedelic era. With nine independent channels, the system was so powerful that the amps only needed to be turned up to two. In 1984, Owsley appeared at Phil Leshs house with a map of the world showing the mean temperatures at the height of the last ice age. The thing about Owsley, Townshend said, is that when he gave you something, he would take it too. After Stanley got out of prison in late 1972, he, Dan Healy and Mark Raizene of the Grateful Dead . Augustus Owsley Stanley III, better known as "Bear," was the Grateful Dead's first live sound engineer, the group's benefactor in their early years, and arguably the most famous manufacturer and distributor of LSD the world has ever known. [12] In 1963, he enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, where he became involved in the psychoactive drug scene. [7], Stanley and Scully built electronic equipment for the Grateful Dead until late spring 1966. Link to comments by the Bear on a low carb forum back in 2006. Quickly regaining control, he says, But, hey, Im alive, right? Without waiting for an answer, he stalks out the motel-room door. Stanley died after a car accident in Australia on Saturday, March 12, 2011,[5] not Sunday, March 13, as reported in most publications[7][8][9][34][35] (a widely propagated error stemming from the Monday release to the press of the initial family statement, which was written on Sunday, stating he "died yesterday"). But they had to double the size of the crew and, in the process, the crew took over the band. Because the Dead were unwilling to fire any members of their large and sometimes dysfunctional family, the band decided in 1974 to instead take a break from touring, not going on the road again until the summer of 1976. We are truly soulmates after twenty-two years together, and our love is as strong today as it was in the beginning. I did it because I was into breeding, and I had some strains that were absolutely unbelievable. Lenny Hart and Owsley, who had never trusted preachers anyway, got on like oil and water. Elected governor in 1915, he became a United States senator and served on the commission that oversaw construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway. He was magnanimous about it, remembers former Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow. Then Id sell them all back to the bookstore at full price as if Id changed classes, because I never needed to look at them again.. The effort to preserve these historically vital recordings is estimated to cost between $300,000 $400,000. The Denver Post (CO.) Press & Sun . Even though Owsley had already put about $50,000 into the band and would no longer be working for them, he told the Dead to pick out new equipment and send him the bill. I just wanted to know the dose and purity of what I took into my own body. On January 30th, 1970, after a Dead show in New Orleans, police walked into the bands Bourbon Street hotel with search warrants and busted the Dead, along with Owsley. A psychedelic known as STP was distributed in the summer of 1967 in 20mg tablets and quickly acquired a bad reputation (later research in normal volunteers showed that 20mg was over six times the dose required to produce hallucinogenic effects, and its slow onset of action may have caused street users to take even more than a single tablet). Stanley Clarke took possession of his first Alembic bass in 1972 which brought a fair amount of interest from outside the Grateful Dead community . These two men both ate an average of 100-140 gm of protein and 200-300 gm of fat, totally 2100-3000 calories per day. After a year-long investigations, agents raided a two-story home in suburban Orinda, picked up Stanley, his girl friend, and three others. By Nate Todd Jan 19, 2023 6:14 am PST. The Owsley Stanley Foundation is a 501c(3) non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of "Bear's Sonic Journals," Owsley's archive of more than 1,300 live concert soundboard recordings from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, including recordings by Miles Davis, Johnny Cash, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Fleetwood Mac . Celebrating 50 years of New Riders of the Purple Sage, the Owsley Stanley Foundations fourth release takes you back in time to the early days when this band was just getting started. And Then There Was David Lindley, See the Beths Deliver Refreshing 'Expert in a Dying Field' Mini-Set on 'CBS Mornings', The YSL Case Is Stretching Fulton County's Justice System to Its Breaking Point, NBA 'Investigating,' Team Suspends Ja Morant After Allegedly Flashing Gun on Social Media. With this rock band, I can rule the world! So we ended up living with Owsley while he was tabbing up the acid in the place we lived. He retained backstage access during this period, and his clientele included such notable figures as Keith Richards. He is a prince of inefficiency, the essence at its most perverse of what the Dead refuse to give up.. Kesey and the Pranksters called these gatherings the Acid Tests, a series of mind-blowing events at which people tripping on LSD were exposed to flashing strobe lights, tape loops and sometimes if the band was not too stoned even a set by the Grateful Dead. Kesey liked 400. His early activities spanned the Beat-era years of Ken Kesey 's Merry Pranksters scenes, but he played a role during the explosion of 1960's Psychedelia culture. Bear Stanley: Reflections on Life, LSD and DMTPlease subscribe to our channel and like our videos to support EGA!If you enjoy EGA's content, we invite you to. At this point, Stanley rented a house in Point Richmond, Richmond, California. Professionally recorded by Owsley in 1974, and mastered using todays most cutting edge technologies, they are exquisite. Cancers grow on glucose. He wanted to lose it. Thanks to Owsley, the Pranksters now had enough LSD on hand to begin throwing parties at which everyone could get a dose. Augustus Owsley Stanley III was infamous in the 60s counterculture scene and his legacy reaches further than most. So when you had something that affects the minds of thousands and thousands of people in the palm of your hand, how could you not believe that your state of mind mattered?, By May 1965, he was back in the Bay Area with 3,600 capsules of extraordinarily pure LSD, dubbed Owsley by a pot-dealing folk guitarist friend. That was his strength and his flaw. On a good night, Owsley will catch as many as 225 toads. -Jorma Kaukonen, A wicked blend of rock, jazz and R&B that created a dynamic, groundbreaking sound. John Lynskey , Hittin The Note. I dont see how anyone in the Northern Hemisphere could survive the storm. You can donate via our secure form, or send checks made out to the Owsley Stanley Foundation to: Owsley Stanley Foundation PO Box 625 Occidental, Ca 95465. Soil in Latest 'Bear's Sonic Journals' Release", "1960s LSD Figure Owsley Stanley Dies In Crash Entertainment News Story WISC Madison", "Jimi Hendrix inspiration and LSD producer Owsley Stanley dies", "Owsley Stanley Obituary - Owsley Stanley Funeral - Legacy.com", "Complete transcript of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker in a BBC-Online Chat, March 4, 2000", "Kid Charlemagne: A Close Reading Of Steely Dan's Ode to Haight Street's LSD King", "Producer Sujoy Sarkar Drops Enigmatic Debut Album 'Sitting At Strawberry Fields Cause I Met Owsley on the Way', Celebstoner.com report of Owsley Stanley's Death, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Owsley_Stanley&oldid=1142575554, Owsley's association with Ken Kesey and the Grateful Dead is described in Tom Wolfe's, A newspaper headline identifying Stanley as an "LSD Millionaire" ran in the, Stanley is mentioned by his first name in the song ", Stanley is mentioned in the title of Sujoy Sarkar's debut album, This page was last edited on 3 March 2023, at 05:21. [28] During this period, he also assisted Phil Lesh in salvaging the technically deficient recordings assembled for Steal Your Face (1976), a poorly-received live album culled from the final October 1974 pre-hiatus shows at Winterland Ballroom. I was riding a magic stallion. The Owsley Stanley Foundation is a 501c (3) non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of "Bear's Sonic Journals," Owsley's archive of more than 1,300 live concert soundboard recordings from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, including recordings by Miles Davis, Johnny Cash, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Fleetwood Mac . The Owsley Stanley Foundations ninth release ofBears Sonic Journals: The Foxhuntfeatures the Chieftains performing live in San Francisco in 1973 (CD & vinyl) and 1976 (CD & digital only). On February 21st, 1965, police raided the house and confiscated various chemicals, including a substance they wrongfully identified as speed. At the time, live sound at rock concerts was extremely primitive. While driving to work one day in his MG, Owsley saw an orange and blue logo with a white bar across it on a building. [5][7][8], Stanley was the scion of a political family from Kentucky. On December 20th, 1967, the agents seized nearly 100 grams of crystalline LSD as well as a quantity of STP, a very powerful long-acting hallucinogen that caused many bad trips in the Haight. In this new three-part series, you and I will explore the life and times of Owsley Stanley, who early on financed the Grateful Dead with money he made as a "cosmic chemist" and was instrumental in the design of the band's legendary "Wall of Sound" stage system. Last note: In 2005 Bear found out The Oxford English Dictionary had added a word: "owsley, N. An extremely potent, high-quality type of LSD; a tablet of this. Owsley's high octane rocket fuel enabled Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters to put on the Acid Tests. N o one did more to alter the consciousness of the generation that came of age in the 1960s than Augustus Owsley Stanley (who passed away March 13 . We would liken it to alchemy. Its sometimes called witchcraft, and its extremely dangerous. Much like his theory that human beings are meant to eat only meat, Owsleys concept of climate change is at odds with most current scientific thought on global warming. His friends just knew him as The Bear. OWSLEY STANLEY OBITUARY. Stanley also provided LSD to the Beatles during filming of Magical Mystery Tour (1967),[15] and former Three Dog Night singer Chuck Negron has noted that Owsley and Leary gave Negron's band free LSD. Owsley lives by selling his art through his Web site (thebear.org) and royalties from Dead recordings. The 1970 Grateful Dead song "Truckin'" is based on the incident ("Busted, down on Bourbon Street / Set up, like a bowling pin / Knocked down, it gets to wearing thin / They just won't let you be"). Augustus Owsley Stanley III (January 19, 1935 - March 12, 2011) was an American audio engineer and clandestine chemist. Owsley Stanley. The tensions culminated in a logistical mishap at an October 1972 concert at Vanderbilt University when students recruited by Stanley to deputize for an absentee Matthews absconded with half of the band's PA system, resulting in a fellow employee throwing Stanley into a water cooler. How many people can say that? Owsley also credits his all-meat diet for keeping him alive. The sound turns into something youve never heard before. A year later, Mario Savio made his historic Free Speech Movement address from atop a police car to student protesters gathered outside Sproul Hall. I dont care who you are. Stanley lived with his wife Sheilah (a former clerk in the Grateful Dead's ticket office) in the bush of Tropical North Queensland, where he worked to create sculpture and wearable art. Owsley Stanley (born Augustus Owsley Stanley III, January 19, 1935 - March 12, 2011) also known as Bear, was a key figure in the San Francisco Bay Area during the 1960s, and played a pivotal role in the counterculture of the 1960's.As a crafts-person, Under the professional name of "Bear", he worked with the psychedelic rock band the Grateful . But he was also an exacting pioneer of live concert sound, a man who helped invent both monitor systems and high . That amount of protein equals about 14-20 oz of meat (lean portion) per day. Everything is connected, because its all being created by this one consciousness. By the time Owsley returned to the Dead in August 1972, Dennis McNally says, It was a different world. By then, most of the money Owsley had amassed during his days as the worlds reigning acid chemist was gone. The new lab was set up in the basement of a house across the street from the Denver Zoo in early 1967. By this time, Sandoz LSD sold under the trade-name Delysid was hard to come by, as Sandoz halted LSD production in August 1965 after growing governmental protests at its proliferation among the general populace, which meant that "Owsley Acid" had become the new standard. Adopt-A-Reel Program: He was a key figure in the San Francisco Bay Area hippie movement during the 1960s and played a pivotal role in the decade's counterculture. When Owsley showed up one day during the fall, he walked over to Kesey and handed him a couple of hits of acid. He was the key supplier of LSD during the 60s Hippie movem. The 30-year-old Owsley took the 21-year-old Scully as his apprentice and they pursued their mutual interest in electronics and psychedelic synthesis. It was always in a safe place, and nobody had a clue, because I never told anyone I did that., Despite his precautions, thirteen agents broke into a house in the East Bay that Owsley had rented for the express purpose of making tabs. Stanley returned to Los Angeles to pursue the production of LSD. Yet today, at seventy-two, he is all but forgotten. As much of his portfolio had been delegated to as many as four sound engineers during his prison sentence, he struggled to regain his past influence among the band and support staff. . All of the rest of their calories came from fat. Augustus Owsley Stanley III aka Bear was an American audio engineer and an underground drug maker. His defense was that the illegal substances were for personal use, but he was found guilty and sentenced to three years in prison. Youre dealing with part of the unconscious mind that they used to define as angels and devils. Until you had tripped, you were not part of the new culture. They had no skills at it. He died Sunday in a car accident in Australia. But now, fifty-three years later, a lost chapter has emerged to enrich and complement the story of that very good year. Thanks to Owsley, the Dead were soon playing through four immense Altec Voice of the Theatre A7 speakers powered by four McIntosh 240 stereo tube amplifiers as delicate as they were huge. [18] Along with his close friend Bob Thomas, Stanley designed the band's iconic 'Steal Your Face' lightning bolt-skull logo. The Owsley Stanley Foundation, in partnership with the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, CA, is pleased to announce the sixth release from Owsley's storied archive of live concert recordings - Bear's Sonic Journals: That Which Colors the Mind, a previously unreleased 1970 live concert featuring one of the greatest masters of Indian classical music, Ali Akbar Khan (sarod . I have owsley silver buckle for sell also terrapin signed by whole band with jerry and brent and more fuktruk@hotmail.com. Amongst his outrageous success from the sale of his acid, Stanley also worked for a time as the Grateful Dead's sound engineer. sulver buckle. His grandfather, also named Augustus Owsley Stanley, was a trust-busting Democratic congressman from Kentucky who spent twelve years in the House of Representatives. Stanley is known throughout the west as "king of acid." Stanley attended the Watts Acid Test on February 12, 1966 with his new apprentice Tim Scully, and provided the LSD. He's also related to William Owsley, the 16th governor of Kentucky, for . $40.00. All Rights reserved. Ive watched wonderful people get destroyed by it., From the time he was a child, what made Owsley unique was his extraordinary family background and the power of his mind. The universe is a creation entirely within a being that is outside time and space, and dreaming what we are. Under the professional name Bear, he was the soundman for the rock band the Grateful Dead, whom he met when Ken Kesey invited them to an Acid Test party. During the past month, he has dispensed with 1,400 of them. For most people, Owsley says, the proper dose is about 150 to 200 micrograms. All donations and proceeds from the development of the recordings flow back into the effort to preserve more of Bears Sonic Journals and perpetuate Owsleys legacy, including patronage of the arts in all of its forms. It was brilliant and it worked, McNally says. So they never became visual, they stayed in the oral world, which is, everything is part of reality. Owsley acid was named for its creator, Owsley Stanley, who was the first person in the United States to mass produce high-quality LSD.In the 1960s, after he had served 18 months in the U.S. Air . Long before global warming became an international hot-button issue, he delivered what writer David Gans described as a ninety-minute lecture on a thermal cataclysm that he said would begin with a six-week rainstorm and leave the entire Northern Hemisphere uninhabitable. Passing around Australian visa applications, Owsley then urged all those present to join him in the Southern Hemisphere. Incredibly, no one called the cops. owsleystanleyfoundation.org is ranked #24747 in the Arts & Entertainment > Music category and #5781650 Globally according to December 2022 data. [24] Stanley and Scully made trial batches of STP in 10mg tablets and then of STP mixed with LSD in a few hundred yellow tablets, but soon ceased production of STP. The "Save The Music!" I was not responsible for his wings, but they did carry me to all kinds of places.. I thought I was going to die, and I said, Fuck it. And that was good., Running out a side door during his freakout, Owsley leaped into his car, gunned the engine and promptly ran into a ditch. Jerry Garcia's Lost Pipe Has Been Found After 30 Years and It Still Smells Like Weed. 3.83. Owsley and Scully finally met a few weeks before the Trips Festival in the fall of 1965. Stanley took advantage of the opportunity there to learn the trade of metalwork and jewelry-making.[5]. Concerning Owsleys legacy to the Dead from this period, Dennis McNally, the bands biographer, says, Bear gave them a vision of quality that quite frankly influenced them for the next thirty years. Technician for Grateful Dead and an LSD cook. Owsley Stanley, better known as the Bear, was the acid hero the 60s never knew it had. Copyright 2023 Penske Business Media, LLC. I said to him, You guys are fucking around with something that people have known about forever. In April 1964, Owsley took LSD. Take out the sun, and the planets all go their own way. Stanley also developed the Grateful Dead's Wall of Sound, one of the largest mobile sound reinforcement systems ever constructed. At the time, Owsley was living with a Berkeley undergraduate chemistry major named Melissa Cargill. He kept the LSD in an inexpensive footlocker that traveled constantly on Greyhound buses between Oakland, San Jose and San Francisco. Taking acid soon became the watermark. They were all gone. Check out our owsley stanley belt buckles selection for the very best in unique or custom, handmade pieces from our shops. My mother died a few months into the experience, but it was there I sorted out my guilt problems about not being able to love my parents, and I came out of it pretty clear. After leaving the public high school, where his physics teacher gave him a D for pointing out that she had contradicted the textbook, he attended the University of Virginia for a year. Stanley and Scully produced about 196grams of LSD in 1967, but 96grams of this was confiscated by the police. You can donate via our secure form, or send checks made out to the Owsley Stanley Foundation to: Owsley Stanley Foundation PO Box 625 Occidental, Ca 95465. Owsley Stanley, famed Grateful Dead soundman and the first person to privately manufacture LSD, lived in the Poet's Corner cottage during the Summer of Love. In late 1967, Stanley's La Espiral, Orinda, lab was raided by police; he was found in possession of 350,000 doses of LSD and 1,500 doses of STP. Our staff is entirely comprised of volunteers, and many of the support services necessary to run the organization have been donated by generous contributors that believe in the mission to save this music before it is lost forever. He dropped out after a semester, took a technical job at KGO-TV, and began producing LSD in a small lab located in the bathroom of a house near campus; his makeshift laboratory was raided by police on February 21, 1965. Or riding your own sound wave. He also noted that the music made during the forty-odd shows when the system was used is still regarded by Deadheads as the pinnacle of live performance.. Because the Dead controlled everything from onstage, no one had to mix from the house. Spirited. - Commander Cody, "Sociologically, you know, this all represents a big switch in the whole rock 'n' roll trip" - Jerry Garcia, A legend recording a legend T. Michael Coleman, Bass, Its not just the energy of youth that shakes me when I listen to these tracks its the musical dialogue that Jack and I shared in these amazing moments. Owsley Stanley, (Augustus Owsley Stanley III), "audio engineer and clandestine chemist", iconic figure of the counter-culture, "Acid King", "Bear"(as he was affectionately known), is our focus today. He was convinced that human beings were natural carnivores, not meant to eat vegetables or fiber. Reach out if you have questions, or to see how you can support the Owsley Stanley Foundation. Lesh likened the experience of playing through the system to piloting a flying saucer. On December 11th, 1965, the Dead played at the Muir Beach Acid Test in a lodge by the sea in Marin County. The top of the circle was orange, and the bottom blue. Because the Dead then began playing a lot of festival-style shows where the equipment would all wind up at the back of the stage in a muddle, Owsley says, he decided to mark their gear so the roadies could easily locate it. A high-school dropout of preternatural intelligence who was born from a Kentucky political dynasty and became the live sound-engineer for the Grateful Dead, his most notorious legacy is as the first Acid Millionaire. It was the most dangerous, underpaid job I ever had in my life, he says.I was never a real grower. Lexington was blown out from under Owsleys father during the Battle of the Coral Sea in World War II, he began drinking heavily and became a lifelong alcoholic. Suddenly, his eyes redden and he is nearly reduced to tears. Details Details. [29] Following the hiatus, Stanley returned as Lesh's personal roadie for "a couple of tours" in the late 1970s, although personality conflicts with other crew members once again precipitated his departure. The same year, Stanley officially shortened his name to "Owsley Stanley". On September 24, an previously unreleased 1968 live album by Johnny Cash that was recorded by Owsley "Bear" Stanley, the Grateful Dead's legendary concert documentarian (and . Stanley's scientific tutelage influenced Gissen's decision to return to her formal studies and pursue the profession of dentistry; their son, Starfinder, would go on to earn zoology and veterinary medicine degrees from Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania.[23]. [32], Stanley believed a "thermal cataclysm" related to climate change would soon render the Northern Hemisphere largely uninhabitable, and moved to Australia in 1982. If what happens onstage is perfect, you put it out there to the audience., After two years of planning and problem-solving, the wall of sound made its debut on March 23rd, 1974, at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. Based on past evidence, the sea will rise 300 meters, and life in some places will be entirely destroyed. The altercation led Stanley to request the formal codification of his perceived managerial power over the equipment staff, including unprecedented hire/fire privileges.
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