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 . 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. His defense was that the illegal substances were for personal use, but he was found guilty and sentenced to three years in prison. 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. Over the course of the next fourteen years, Owsley known to his friends as Bear because of his prematurely hairy chest as a teenager enlisted in the Air Force, became a ham- radio operator, obtained a first-class radiotelephone operators license, worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and served as a summer-relief broadcast engineer at TV and radio stations in Los Angeles. 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. Stanley, born Augustus Owsley Stanley III in 1935, was known to nearly all his many friends and customers as "Bear." But in a single released by Steely Dan from the 1976 album The Royal Scam . Counterculture legend Owsley "Bear" Stanley is most closely associated with 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. When he finally returned to his physical body and found it mostly intact, Owsley was horrified by the way Kesey and the Pranksters were messing with peoples minds. Lenny Hart and Owsley, who had never trusted preachers anyway, got on like oil and water. Needless to say, the party is electric. 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. The Owsley Stanley Foundations 8th release ofBears Sonic Journals: Johnny Cash At the Carousel Ballroomfeatures Cash playing songs of outsiders, outlaws, and in-laws, exquisitely captured by Bear. The Fresno Bee (CA.) SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. - Millionare Augustus Owsley Stanley III, revered among hippies as the "King of Acid," finally has run into big, big trouble with the federal narcotics boys. Owsley wanted the Dead not only to be clearly heard but also in stereo, a concept so far ahead of its time that it would be ten years before such systems were installed in movie theaters. [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. Stanley and Scully produced about 196grams of LSD in 1967, but 96grams of this was confiscated by the police. By Nate Todd Jan 19, 2023 6:14 am PST. 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. Augustus Owsley Stanley III (later nicknamed Bear) was born on Jan. 19, 1935. The Idol: How HBOs Next Euphoria Became Twisted Torture Porn. Theyre extremely glucose-avid. And we are tiny reflections of the mind that is creating the universe. OWSLEY STANLEY OBITUARY. The "Save The Music!" 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. Details Details. Unlike his own father, Owsley has made every effort to be an active parent to his son Starfinder and daughter Redbird (whose mother is Cargill), born three weeks apart to two different mothers who remain good friends and raised their children as brother and sister. All of the rest of their calories came from fat. They had no skills at it. 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. 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"). Stanley's lab in Berkeley was raided in 1966 and he was arrested. Owsley hired the vice mayor of Berkeley as his attorney, who forced them in court to furnish us with a sample, which we submitted to an independent laboratory that proved them wrong, leading to the dismissal of all charges.. In 1963, Owsley moved to Berkeley so he could take classes at the university, where the student protest movement was growing. The police were looking for methamphetamine but found only LSD, which was not illegal at the time. He's also related to William Owsley, the 16th governor of Kentucky, for . John Perry Barlow, who has been there, describes the enclave as something out of Lord Jim, but the main living area is rather Victorian, handsomely carpeted, lots of books around, nice furniture and no walls. Owsley generates all his own power through a solar and wind system he built himself and collects rainwater he stores in two large tanks. The little bears found in the form of stickers and stuffed dolls are taken from Bob Thomas' album cover art. . As above, so below. We called it the microcosm and the macrocosm. Professionally recorded by Owsley in 1974, and mastered using todays most cutting edge technologies, they are exquisite. USA Today. 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. In February 1966, Owsley and the Dead moved to Los Angeles for another series of Acid Tests. Unable to swallow solid food since the cancer treatments, he laments that he can no longer enjoy dining out with friends. 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. 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. 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. Its something that goes from being absolutely inert to so powerful that twenty-five micrograms will cause a change in your consciousness, he says. 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. Owsley Stanley was a counterculture transformer famous for the purity of two things: the LSD he cooked up and the rock 'n' roll sound system he created. The American psychologist Timothy Leary's famous invitation to "tune in, turn on and drop out" changed a generation. AlabamaAlaskaArizonaArkansasCaliforniaColoradoConnecticutDelawareDistrict of ColumbiaFloridaGeorgiaHawaiiIdahoIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyLouisianaMaineMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriMontanaNebraskaNevadaNew HampshireNew JerseyNew MexicoNew YorkNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaOhioOklahomaOregonPennsylvaniaRhode IslandSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeTexasUtahVermontVirginiaWashingtonWest VirginiaWisconsinWyomingAmerican SamoaCanal ZoneCommonwealth of the Northern Mariana IslandsFederated States of MicronesiaGuamMarshall IslandsNorthern Mariana IslandsPalauPhilippine IslandsPuerto RicoTrust Territory of the Pacific IslandsVirgin IslandsArmed Forces - AmericasArmed Forces - Europe, Canada, Middle East, AfricaArmed Forces - Pacific. [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. Written by WL Woodward. Technician for Grateful Dead and an LSD cook. He died in a car accident in Australia (where he had taken citizenship in 1996) on March 12, 2011. I dont see how anyone in the Northern Hemisphere could survive the storm. His father was a government attorney. So of course behind his back, people were sneaking candy bars in. Dad gave what I believe to be one of the most intimate and connected shows I have ever heard. John Carter Cash. He was a key figure in the San Francisco Bay Area hippie movement during the 1960s and played a pivotal role in the decades counterculture. We had enough acid to blow the world apart. He has parlayed this talent into a career, crafting belt buckles and pendants for everyone from KeithRichards to Jackson Browne that sell for as much as $20,000. 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. The photo to the right shows the source of the design of the bear motif on Bear's Choice. The cottage commonly known as the Troll House and located at 2321 Valley St., is for sale and . The effort to preserve these historically vital recordings is estimated to cost between $300,000 $400,000. 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 . But manufacturing acid is not the only accomplishment on Owsleys rsum. 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). [18] Along with his close friend Bob Thomas, Stanley designed the band's iconic 'Steal Your Face' lightning bolt-skull logo. 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. . AlabamaAlaskaArizonaArkansasCaliforniaColoradoConnecticutDelawareDistrict of ColumbiaFloridaGeorgiaHawaiiIdahoIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyLouisianaMaineMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriMontanaNebraskaNevadaNew HampshireNew JerseyNew MexicoNew YorkNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaOhioOklahomaOregonPennsylvaniaRhode IslandSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeTexasUtahVermontVirginiaWashingtonWest VirginiaWisconsinWyomingAmerican SamoaCanal ZoneCommonwealth of the Northern Mariana IslandsFederated States of MicronesiaGuamMarshall IslandsNorthern Mariana IslandsPalauPhilippine IslandsPuerto RicoTrust Territory of the Pacific IslandsVirgin IslandsArmed Forces - AmericasArmed Forces - Europe, Canada, Middle East, AfricaArmed Forces - Pacific. Yet today, at seventy-two, he is all but forgotten. These performances have not been heard since the nights they were played more than 40 years ago ! Roughage is the worst thing you can put through your body, he says. $40.00. Your body gets old but your mind can always accept that. Former Rolling Stone editor Greenfield's pretty solid, if skimpily researched, book provides an . 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. Tripping frequently if not constantly. Owsley Stanley. By his own account, between 1965 and 1967, Stanley produced no less than 500 grams of LSD, amounting to a little more than five million doses at the time. 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. Neither one of them really wanted to be parents, he says. After selling his Voice of the Theatre speakers and McIntosh amps to Bill Graham, who installed them in the Fillmore, Owsley donated most of the bands other gear to the Straight Theater, a hippie venue on Haight Street. Stanley returned to Los Angeles to pursue the production of LSD. Augustus Owsley Stanley III, better known by his nickname, Bear, was one of the most iconic figures in the cultural revolution that changed both America and the world during the 1960s. Despite maintaining a 3.4 grade point average with minimal effort, he dropped out because of his disinclination for slide rules and mechanical drawing. Died at age 76 in an automobile accident. When Owsley asked Lesh what he could do for the band, the bass player said they had no manager and offered him the job. Throughout the summer of 1965, in a big house down in La Honda, about forty miles south of San Francisco, Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters hosted wild parties with guests that included Hunter S. Thompson, Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg and various Hells Angels. Augustus Owsley Stanley III, 32, whose grandfather was a Kentucky governor, congressman and U.S. senator, was arrested by agents of the Federal Bureau of Drug Abuse Thursday in a raid on a fashionable two-story home in this residential community 40 miles east of San Francisco. [5][7][8], Stanley was the scion of a political family from Kentucky. The shelves werent even in there just these big hunks of meat. Forty-feet high, it was composed of 604 speakers using 26,400 watts of power supplied by 55 McIntosh 2300s. Details. 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. 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. For most people, Owsley says, the proper dose is about 150 to 200 micrograms. Almost before I realized what was happening, the whole affair had gotten completely out of hand. This live concert recording features recently discovered and previously unreleased music from Jefferson Airplanes fabled guitar and bass players before they became known as Hot Tuna. On February 21st, 1965, police raided the house and confiscated various chemicals, including a substance they wrongfully identified as speed. Breeding so rapidly that they soon became a national nightmare, the giant toads (some of which weigh as much as two pounds and have come to be considered an environmental menace in both Hawaii and Australia) are now poisoning the baby fish in the acre-and-a-half lake Owsley created on his property. It turned out that it wasnt., The senior arresting officer, aware of Owsleys status, noted that the bust would probably cause panic in the streets because to a lot of hippies, their idol has fallen. He added that Owsley was actually a psychedelic missionary who gives the impression that he feels the average person can never actually know himself without turning on with LSD., As Owsleys case dragged through the courts for the next two years, he stopped making acid and worked as the sound man at the Carousel Ballroom for three months before it was bought by Bill Graham and renamed the Fillmore West. Stanley also helped Robert Thomas design the band's trademark skull logo. I was just a neurotic kid, he says. .. These . While doing two years in federal prison in the early Seventies for manufacturing acid, Owsley taught himself how to make jewelry. Youre concentrating a lot of mental energy on one package. Im not really interested in talking about myself, he says. 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 . The universe is a creation entirely within a being that is outside time and space, and dreaming what we are. The issue is available in the online archive. It was brilliant and it worked, McNally says. Im interested in the work Ive done and the things Ive discovered and in some of my philosophical stuff, because I think its of value, but Im not into being a celebrity, because I think celebrityhood has no value to anyone, least of all to the celebrity. Owsley Stanley, better known as the Bear, was the acid hero the 60s never knew it had. Augustus Owsley Stanley III aka Bear was an American audio engineer and an underground drug maker. [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. Everything is connected, because its all being created by this one consciousness. Available in both digital-to-digital and analog-to-analog separately mastered versions (CD, Downloads, 180g 45-RPM Vinyl, Reel-to-Reel Tape). 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. All Rights reserved. This article appeared in the July 12-27, 2007 issue of Rolling Stone. I couldn't read the name of the firm, and so was just looking at the shape. No 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, 2011). 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. [36], After Stanley's death in 2011, his family and some close friends created a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization called the Owsley Stanley Foundation. From 1974 to 1981, he also grew and sold cannabis from his garden in Fairfax, California, but the profits from this endeavor proved to be far less remunerative than his earlier work in clandestine chemistry. David Lindley, Multi-Instrumentalist Who Shaped the Sound of Soft Rock, Dead at 78 But now, fifty-three years later, a lost chapter has emerged to enrich and complement the story of that very good year. 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. His friends just knew him as The Bear. Written by WL Woodward. 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.