Stanley was the first known private individual to manufacture mass quantities of LSD. 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 situation was exacerbated by his disdain for the coarse language and deleterious drugs (most notably alcohol and cocaine) favored by the band's physically imposing roadies, many of whom perceived themselves as "macho cowboys" in contrast to Stanley's diminutive stature and scholarly appearance. At the time, live sound at rock concerts was extremely primitive. (He has also never willingly allowed his photograph to be taken.) Owsley Foundation Vandoliers Play Tennessee Concert in Dresses to Protest State's New Drag Bill Augustus Owsley Stanley III (January 19, 1935 - March 12, 2011) was an American audio engineer and clandestine chemist. Once the systems set, you can walk away from the board. But he was also an exacting pioneer of live concert sound, a man who helped invent both monitor systems and high . The pot vessel was made by LSD pioneer Owsley Stanley for the Grateful Dead frontman. 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"). 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. Owsley Stanley. 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. Reach out if you have questions, or to see how you can support the Owsley Stanley Foundation. I never took notes when I was in college,he says. 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. Former Grateful Dead sound engineer Owsley Stanley (left) is seen with Jerry Garcia at the San Diego International Airport in 1968. It was the most dangerous, underpaid job I ever had in my life, he says.I was never a real grower. 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. Stanley was the Dead's audio engineer, longtime friend, and perhaps the most notable LSD chemist in the 1960s. [1], Called the Acid King by the media,[2] Stanley was the first known private individual to manufacture mass quantities of LSD. I dont want my life exposed publicly. [16], Stanley met the members of the Grateful Dead during 1965. A year later, the novelist Ken Kesey was given acid at the Veterans Hospital in Menlo Park as part of a federally funded program in which volunteers were paid twenty dollars a session to ingest hallucinogens. Jerry Garcia's Lost Pipe Has Been Found After 30 Years and It Still Smells Like Weed. He used his Berkeley lab to buy 500grams of lysergic acid monohydrate, the basis for LSD. When I build a sound system, Owsley says, I do it in a single cluster, because everything in the hall must come from one spot in the room. 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. This article appeared in the July 12-27, 2007 issue of Rolling Stone. OWSLEY STANLEY OBITUARY. These performances have not been heard since the nights they were played more than 40 years ago ! He is a prince of inefficiency, the essence at its most perverse of what the Dead refuse to give up.. As reclusive and protective of his identity as Owsley "Bear" Stanley had been, one can't manufacture the purest LSD on the planet and personally turn on half of the state of California and parts of Nevada and remain unknown. 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. Together, they dwell in a complex of sheds, caravans, large canvas tents, modified shipping containers and corrugated-iron structures designed and built by Owsley. Tom Sizemore, Heat and Saving Private Ryan Actor, Dead at 61 [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. * [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. David Lindley, Multi-Instrumentalist Who Shaped the Sound of Soft Rock, Dead at 78 [7], Stanley and Scully built electronic equipment for the Grateful Dead until late spring 1966. These analog reel-to-reel recordings are nearing the end of their expected shelf lives and will deteriorate and be lost forever if they are not preserved. He also studied ballet, Russian and French. All donations to the Owsley Stanley Foundation are fully tax deductible. That was his strength and his flaw. 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). Owsley Stanley, 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 19. 631 ratings55 reviews. After sampling it, he changed his mind. Long before the Summer of Love drew thousands of hippies to Haight-Ashbury, Owsley was already an authentic underground folk hero, revered throughout the counterculture for making the purest form of LSD ever to hit the street. Source: medium.com. Bear Story The Owsley Foundation places full page ads in major newspapers that proclaim Christ's Second Coming. The Johnny Appleseed of LSD - Kentucky for Kentucky - KY for KY Store It is articulate. Grateful Dead Artist Page: Photos, Videos and More, For the past twenty years, Owsley has lived off the grid in a remote section of Australian rain forest. 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. When LSD became illegal in California on October 6, 1966, Scully decided to set up a new lab in Denver, Colorado. By the time Owsley returned to the Dead in August 1972, Dennis McNally says, It was a different world. Stanley Clarke took possession of his first Alembic bass in 1972 which brought a fair amount of interest from outside the Grateful Dead community . Owsley was sent to Terminal Island Federal Prison, a medium-security lockup in San Pedro where Charles Manson had also done time. [6], He died in a car accident in Australia (where he had taken citizenship in 1996) on March 12, 2011. The issue is available in the online archive. 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. Owsley Stanley | Eat Meat. Drink Water. OSF Doc & Merle Watson: Never the Same Way Once - Live at the Boarding House - May 1974 Double Vinyl Set. [31], Notwithstanding his tour activities, Stanley made his first public appearance in decades at the Australian ethnobotanical conference Entheogenesis Australis in 2009, giving three talks during his time in Melbourne. Because you were. The thing about Owsley, Townshend said, is that when he gave you something, he would take it too. Photo Illustration by The New York Times; Photograph from San Francisco Chronicle, via . All Rights reserved. Kesey liked 400. Neither one of them really wanted to be parents, he says. A year after that, I moved to Australia.. 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. In 1973, he served as lead designer of the band's Wall of Sound, collaborating with Dan Healy and Mark Raizene, as well as Rick Turner and John Curl of Alembic to design the groundbreaking sound reinforcement system. The same year, Stanley officially shortened his name to "Owsley Stanley". When the Dead declined to do so, Owsley found himself in what McNally calls limbo. Shifting his focus to what he knew best, the science of sound, Owsley began working on a revolutionary new system that would deliver crystal-clear audio in the big hockey arenas and indoor stadiums the Dead were now selling out. Counterculture legend Owsley "Bear" Stanley is most closely associated with the Grateful Dead. Lesh likened the experience of playing through the system to piloting a flying saucer. And because he had the foresight to plug a tape recorder directly into the sound board during Dead shows, the music the band made at the peak of its power has been gloriously preserved in recordings still being issued in the series titled Dicks Picks, for which Owsley continues to receive royalties. 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 also sent a photographer back to England with a telephoto lens packed with tabs of purple acid on the condition that he share them with the Beatles. The bad news was that since Owsley was paying the rent, he expected them to adhere to his unconventional ideas and beliefs. In the Oxford English dictionary, the word Owsley is listed as a noun describing a particularly pure form of LSD. He was the Grateful Deads original sound man and their initial financial benefactor. He lived in a picturesque Berkeley cottage filled with high-end stereo equipment where he kept an owl to which he fed live mice. Augustus Owsley Stanley III (January 19, 1935 March 12, 2011) was an American-Australian audio engineer and clandestine chemist. Owsley's high octane rocket fuel enabled Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters to put on the Acid Tests. 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. By Nate Todd Jan 19, 2023 6:14 am PST. Although people speculated for years about how Owsley managed to conceal his stash, no one ever figured it out. If you wanted to be an idiot and do something any way but his, that was your decision. 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. [26], Stanley was confined to federal prison from 1970 to 1972, after a federal judge intervened and revoked his release from the 1967 case. His nickname, Bear, reputedly was inspired by the profuse . 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 . From Owsley's '60s to Today: A Long, Strange Intergenerational Trip Frequently attributive, esp. At the time, Owsley was living with a Berkeley undergraduate chemistry major named Melissa Cargill. I could leave it for up to thirty days in the bus station and I would go to it wherever it was, take out whatever I needed, take it back in, and send it to myself in the next city. His paternal grandfather, for whom he was named, was a congressman, governor of Kentucky and United States . Had it not been for Sheilah, he says, I dont think I would have survived. "Trips Festival" (from _Bear: The Life and Times of Augustus Owsley Copyright 2023 Penske Business Media, LLC. "[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. For the Dead, the good news was that they now had nothing to do all day but jam. The Denver Post (CO.) Press & Sun . Augustus Owsley Stanley III aka Bear was an American audio engineer and an underground drug maker. Augustus Owsley Stanley III (January 19, 1935 March 12, 2011) was an American audio engineer and clandestine chemist. He's also related to William Owsley, the 16th governor of Kentucky, for . Jerry Garcia's Lost Owsley Stanley Pipe Is Found - Rolling Stone Owsley Stanley Foundation Merch Mountain Store Details Details. 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. Around this time Owsley also began studying The Kybalion, a book of purported ancient wisdom that elucidates the seven basic principles of alchemy, which he describes as mental transformation, explaining,It was never about transforming substances. In Berkeley, Owsley began smoking pot and selling Heavenly Blue morning-glory seeds (250 for a dollar), which served to get people not high but weird when taken in great quantity. Reach out if you have questions, or to see how you can support the Owsley Stanley Foundation. February 11, 13, & 14, 1970, The Boarding House, May 1 May 4, 1974Seven CD Set. 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.. sulver buckle. It is a 36 point lead type-slug of a . A year later, Mario Savio made his historic Free Speech Movement address from atop a police car to student protesters gathered outside Sproul Hall. 1st ever box set of live concert recordings from Doc & Merle Watson, 1st release of Bears Sonic Journals from the Owsley Stanley Foundation, Several rare songs Doc Watson never recorded live, The only known contemporaneous photographs of Doc & Merle Watson, Photos of Old Hoss, the Gallagher guitar Doc played from 1968 until the end of this tour in 1974, In depth interview with bassist T. Michael Coleman, An original essay by David Holt, 4-time Grammy winner and longtime Doc collaborator, Original cover art by Mike DuBois based on a drawing by Owsleys son, Starfinder. 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. 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. Owsley declined. Owsley Stanley - Owsley Stanley Foundation [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. They had no skills at it. Five months later at Monterey Pop, Owsley passed out his Monterey Purple backstage to Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townshend and the Stones Brian Jones, not to mention much of the festivals staff and crew. There are titles here never heard before [on a release] and seldom played. Bear: The Owsley Stanley Story, Part Two - PS Audio By accounts, in early 1967 Owsley "Bear" Stanley (click on the links for Part One and Part Two of this series) had stashed away $225,000 in a safe deposit box at Manufacturers Hanover Trust, $320,000 in various accounts around San Francisco, and an unspecified amount at a bank in London. Pittsburgh Post Gazette (PA.) Reno Gazette Journal (NV.) 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. The Owsley Stanley Foundation and the Allman Brothers Band are pleased to present the latest chapter in, The Great American Music Hall, May 5, 1976, 2021 Owsley Stanley Foundation | Web Partner, The Family Dog at the Great HighwayMarch 28, 1970, Merry-Go-Round at the Carousel, Tim Buckley at the Carousel Ballroom, Ali Akbar Khan, That Which Colors the Mind, Found in the Ozone, Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen, Dawn of the New Riders of the Purple Sage, Allman Brothers Fillmore East February 1970, Doc & Merle Watson Never The Same Way Once, A masterpiece. According to Rolling Stone,[25] everyone in the band except Ron "Pigpen" McKernan and Tom Constanten - neither of whom used psychedelic drugs - was included in the arrest, along with several members of their retinue, including Stanley and some locals. [27], Although Stanley stopped touring with the band following their refusal of his demands, he continued to be employed by the Grateful Dead. 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. And that alone gives him credibility for that scene., By the time lsd became illegal in California on October 6th, 1966, Owsley had become a mythic figure. 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. 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.
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