When you find a new live Tim Buckley recording, it's like finding a whole new Tim Buckley! The insane life of Owsley Stanley, the famous LSD producer of the 60s [3], Stanley's level of access to the group's inner echelon (including complimentary food from the band's caterers) was somewhat controversial among the band's employees, with one staffer opining that "he had the sales tactics of a Mumbai street peddler"; on one occasion, Garcia and Weir were forced to intervene when Stanley provoked Chelsea Clinton's Secret Service detail as he attempted to conduct business with the then-First Daughter. Until you had tripped, you were not part of the new culture. The Bear | Eat Meat. Drink Water. Thats what alchemy says., To generate enough cash to purchase the raw materials to make LSD, Owsley and Cargill began making and selling methedrine in a makeshift bathroom lab in Berkeley. within a few days of it coming out. Augustus Owsley Stanley III (January 19, 1935 - March 12, 2011) was an American audio engineer and clandestine chemist. For decades, a . . The Fresno Bee (CA.) 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. There were no onstage monitors, so musicians couldnt hear one another. He also grew weed in a garden outside his house. He used his Berkeley lab to buy 500grams of lysergic acid monohydrate, the basis for LSD. Stanley moved to Australia in 1982, and frequently returned to the United States to sell his jewelry (which commanded high prices) on Grateful Dead tours. Written by WL Woodward. His friends just knew him as The Bear. Copyright 2023 Penske Business Media, LLC. 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 . So of course behind his back, people were sneaking candy bars in. 1 of 8 Veternarian Starfinder Stanley, son of the late Owsley Bear Stanley, lifts Sherman, his tortoise who moves like a tank, plowing through branches at his home on 06-03-17, Sebastopol . Three weeks later, on January 8th, 1966, Owsley sashayed into the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco for another Acid Test. Our planets heat balance and temperature are buffered and controlled by water and water vapor, which also washes CO2 out of the air and not minuscule fractions of a couple of gases, one of which is very soluble and the other unstable. A thought occurred to me: if the orange were red and the bar across were a lightning bolt cutting across at an angle, then we would have a very nice, unique and highly identifiable mark to put on the equipment. 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. We had enough acid to blow the world apart. Bob Matthews, who had been mixing since my departure, did not want to completely relinquish the mixing desk, which was a total pain in the ass for me, since he was basically a studio engineer and no match for my live mixing ability." Would the Summer of Love have ever happened without Stanley, the reclusive acid impresario who turned on the world? Moon face buckles were made in solid silver in two . The top of the circle was orange, and the bottom blue. Its sometimes called witchcraft, and its extremely dangerous. Living in Marin County, he supported himself doing sound for Jefferson Starship and Phil Lesh and selling his jewelry backstage, in arena parking lots and in hotel bars after shows whenever the Grateful Dead toured. 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. [16], Stanley met the members of the Grateful Dead during 1965. March 14, 2011. The American psychologist Timothy Leary's famous invitation to "tune in, turn on and drop out" changed a generation. Augustus Owsley Stanley III (later nicknamed Bear) was born on Jan. 19, 1935. 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. Augustus Owsley Stanley III (January 19, 1935 - March 12, 2011) was an American-Australian audio engineer and clandestine chemist.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.Under the professional name Bear, he was the sound engineer for the Grateful Dead, recording many of the band's live . Owsley Stanley - Wikipedia His ashes were placed on the soundboard at the celebration of the Grateful Dead's 50th anniversary at the Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of the Grateful Dead shows in Chicago, on July 35, 2015. 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. [18] Along with his close friend Bob Thomas, Stanley designed the band's iconic 'Steal Your Face' lightning bolt-skull logo. 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. David Lindley, Multi-Instrumentalist Who Shaped the Sound of Soft Rock, Dead at 78 [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. See Tom Taylor's account of his life and times published late last year in Far Out magazine. Owsley Stanley Obituary (2011) - Burlington, VT - Legacy.com Alchemy didnt talk about lead into gold until it had to deal with the church in the early Middle Ages., For Owsley, The Kybalion was perfect because it put into total context all the things I had experienced on acid. Augustus Owsley Stanley III aka Bear was an American audio engineer and an underground drug maker. [27], Although Stanley stopped touring with the band following their refusal of his demands, he continued to be employed by the Grateful Dead. I just wanted to know the dose and purity of what I took into my own body. They wanted to maintain the same old same old which under their limited abilities, they had memorized to the point where they could sleepwalk through shows. Richmond mayor goes on hunt for Owsley Stanley's LSD lab - East Bay Times Illustration by Jody Hewgill. The Grateful Dead were not just good they were magic personified. Then and there, he decided to work for the most amazing group ever, have a fabulous time of it and try to make a positive contribution. Though Grateful Dead bass player Phil Lesh was the band member with whom Owsley would forge the closest ties, he saw Jerry Garcia as the sun in the center of the solar system. This should set the Buckley-sphere on Fire! They decided to try to make acid that was at least as good or better than any pharmaceutical firm. It took Owsley just three weeks in the UCBerkeley library to learn everything he needed to know about the process. Owsley Stanley Foundation Merch Mountain Store Joel Selvin also wrote an extensive note on Owsley back in 2007 on the occasion of his . All donations to the Owsley Stanley Foundation are fully tax deductible. 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. I dont see how anyone in the Northern Hemisphere could survive the storm. Once the systems set, you can walk away from the board. It is articulate. 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. Take out the sun, and the planets all go their own way. Owsley Stanley (a.k.a. It is loud without being loud. After Stanley got out of prison in late 1972, he, Dan Healy and Mark Raizene of the Grateful Dead . The Owsley Stanley Foundation is pleased to present an audiophile release of incendiary performances by the incomparable Doc and Merle Watson, from Bears Sonic Journals -Owsleys storied trove of live concert recordings. And we were just musicians in this house, and we were guinea-pigging more or less continually. Grateful Dead Sources: December 21, 1967: Owsley Bust He retained backstage access during this period, and his clientele included such notable figures as Keith Richards. In The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe described how Owsley completely lost control of himself, dissolving into gaseous nothingness until he became nothing more than a single cell. It all comes from what the musicians do, and that was my goal from the beginning. The problem was that the system was so huge and required so much setup time that the Dead had to use two separate stages and two crews so the next show could be put up while the last was still being taken down. When Owsley showed up one day during the fall, he walked over to Kesey and handed him a couple of hits of acid. Augustus Owsley Stanley III (January 19, 1935 March 12, 2011) was an American audio engineer and clandestine chemist. 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). 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 . Owsley "Bear" Stanleyinterview by David GansJanuary 13, 1991KPFA (94.1 FM) Radio ArchivesAugustus Owsley Stanley III (January 19, 1935 - March 12, 2011) was . After a year-long investigations, agents raided a two-story home in suburban Orinda, picked up Stanley, his girl friend, and three others. The Japanese don't write in alphabetic writing; they write in pictographs. Forty-feet high, it was composed of 604 speakers using 26,400 watts of power supplied by 55 McIntosh 2300s. The Owsley Stanley Foundation is dedicated to preserving and sharing the experience of the. LSD king Owsley Stanley's 'Sonic Journals' surface after 50 years OSF Doc & Merle Watson: Never the Same Way Once - Live at the Boarding House - May 1974 Double Vinyl Set. The Owsley Stanley Foundation is a 501c(3) non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of Bears Sonic Journals, Owsleys 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, Janis Joplin, and more than 80 other artists across nearly every musical idiom. When LSD became illegal in California on October 6, 1966, Scully decided to set up a new lab in Denver, Colorado. The same year, Stanley officially shortened his name to "Owsley Stanley". "[1], During his time as the sound engineer for the Grateful Dead, Stanley started what became the long-term practice of recording the Dead while they rehearsed and performed. Stanley was the Dead's audio engineer, longtime friend, and perhaps the most notable LSD chemist in the 1960s. [13][14] He was featured (most prominently his freak-out at the Muir Beach Acid Test in November 1965) in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968), Tom Wolfe's book detailing the history of Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. The "Save The Music!" I generally was not much of a consumer., Concerning much of what has been attributed to him during this period, Owsley says, The only thing I havent been associated with is walking on the moon, for Christs sake. Owsley did not parachute in to the Human Be-In in January 1967, as was widely reported, but he did provide 300,000 hits of acid called White Lightning for the event. Owsley Stanley | Eat Meat. Drink Water. Owsley Stanley 1935-2011 'Bear' helped Grateful Dead, made LSD. By the time Owsley returned to the Dead in August 1972, Dennis McNally says, It was a different world. A legend recording a legend T. Michael Coleman, Bass. 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. As above, so below. We called it the microcosm and the macrocosm. Owsley Stanley. Ego death. By doing so, he compiled a historic collection of live performances. . Stanley, known as Bear, earned the moniker "King of Acid . Bcc: this option will retain the list of addresses on the server, placing only one address per copy as it sends to each name on the list. Immediately following his release, Stanley resumed working for the Grateful Dead as a roadie and sound engineer in the summer of 1972. On a good night, Owsley will catch as many as 225 toads. Written by WL Woodward. But there are areas on the planet that are safe, and I hope Im in one of them.. 11 years 9 months ago. I did it because I was into breeding, and I had some strains that were absolutely unbelievable. On February 21st, 1965, police raided the house and confiscated various chemicals, including a substance they wrongfully identified as speed. I was just a neurotic kid, he says. Theyre extremely glucose-avid. We were officially granted 501(c)(3) nonprofit status by the IRS in December 2012. Three years ago, he underwent extensive radiation for throat cancer, losing thirty pounds in the process. An article in The Los Angeles Times described him rolling up to a Sunset Strip bank on a red motorcycle with crumpled bills stashed in his helmet, pockets and boots. 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. Adopt-A-Reel Program:For donations of $400 or more, we will work with you to select one of Bears Sonic Journals for priority preservation. Owsley Stanley - Man who created 300,000 hits of Acid in his - YouTube He is moving so slowly that someone from the front desk comes to the room to ask if he ever intends to leave. Owsley Stanley Jewelry For Sale - Starco Jewellers Augustus Owsley Stanley III (January 19, 1935 March 12, 2011) was an American-Australian audio engineer and clandestine chemist. His paternal grandfather, Augustus Owsley Stanley, a member of the United States Senate after serving as Governor of Kentucky and in the U.S. House of Representatives, campaigned against Prohibition in the 1920s.[5]. The Owsley Foundation places full page ads in major newspapers that proclaim Christ's Second Coming.