In July 1968, Owsley rejoined the Dead. 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. They were all gone. 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. Suddenly, his eyes redden and he is nearly reduced to tears. 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An Amazon Best Book of November 2016: Most people with passing knowledge of San Francisco and the 60s are familiar with the main players: the Grateful Dead, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, the Hells Angels, et al, but how many know of August Owsley Stanley III, aka Owsley, aka Bear? He is moving so slowly that someone from the front desk comes to the room to ask if he ever intends to leave. The headmaster later told High Times magazine that he remembered Owsley as almost like a brainchild, a wunderkinder, tremendously interested in science. Even then, Owsley was possessed by what he calls this rogue, get-high nature of mine and was expelled in ninth grade for smuggling alcohol into school during homecoming weekend, getting virtually every student on campus blasted out of their minds., When he was fifteen, Owsley spent fifteen months as a voluntary patient in St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C., where the poet Ezra Pound was also confined. [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. We had Meet the Beatles! If he lost control of that one cell, there would be nothing left, Wolfe wrote. And if you believe, as I did, that the universe is a creation in the mind of a being that is creating time and space, then everything is mental. On January 14, 1967, Owsley supplied LSD for an even larger festival, The Gathering of the Tribes, a Human Be-In, held in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. [32], Stanley believed a "thermal cataclysm" related to climate change would soon render the Northern Hemisphere largely uninhabitable, and moved to Australia in 1982. [UPDATE 11/21/22]: In an effort to refute claims made by Steve Cabella about the origins of a pipe allegedly gifted to Jerry Garcia by Owsley "Bear" Stanley, Bear's son Starfinder Stanley . The Arctic and Antarctic are soaking up the moving heat and the ice caps are melting, but the cause of the heats movement is a buildup of energy as the prelude to a massive, planetary-scale cyclonic storm, which will build the new ice age glaciers., Because this is a natural cycle, Owsley believes that carbon and methane emissions from human activity have little effect on the process and do not cause the greenhouse effect. By then, most of the money Owsley had amassed during his days as the worlds reigning acid chemist was gone. This article appeared in the July 12-27, 2007 issue of Rolling Stone. Copyright 2023 Penske Business Media, LLC. Robert Greenfield. Later that year, a friend gave Owsley 400 micrograms of pure LSD manufactured by Sandoz Laboratories in Switzerland, where Dr. Albert Hofmann had first synthesized the drug in 1938. Ill never forget that when youd open the refrigerator, there were big slabs of beef in there, Rosie McGee, Phil Leshs girlfriend at the time, later told Garcia biographer Jackson. (Blind Carbon Copy). Incredibly, no one called the cops. 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. 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. Frequently attributive, esp. 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. Moon face buckles were made in solid silver in two . As the water boils, he packs up a Braun food mixer and the vast array of other gadgets he carries with him. Yet today, at seventy-two, he is all but forgotten. Tom Sizemore, Heat and Saving Private Ryan Actor, Dead at 61 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 attended the Watts Acid Test on February 12, 1966 with his new apprentice Tim Scully, and provided the LSD. He used his Berkeley lab to buy 500grams of lysergic acid monohydrate, the basis for LSD. "Bear," as he came to be known, was a hoot and . In June 1956, he enlisted in the United States Air Force as an electronics specialist, serving for 18 months (including stints at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Edwards Air Force Base's Rocket Engine Test Facility) before being discharged in 1958. Augustus Owsley Stanley III was the LSD chemist and audio maestro who not only created the Grateful Dead's "Wall of Sound" and inspired the band's dancing bear iconography, but also created the . Especially this one. 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. Its absolutely clear. . February 11, 13, & 14, 1970, The Boarding House, May 1 May 4, 1974Seven CD Set. [12] In 1963, he enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, where he became involved in the psychoactive drug scene. $30.00. 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 . This should set the Buckley-sphere on Fire! When he was fifteen, Owsley spent fifteen months as a voluntary psychiatric patient in St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C.[9] Without having graduated high school, he was admitted to the University of Virginia, where he studied engineering for a year. 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. 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. Musicians can adjust it. His grandfather, Augustus Owsley Stanley, had been a US senator and the governor of Kentucky. When Owsley asked Lesh what he could do for the band, the bass player said they had no manager and offered him the job. Ignoring the inquiry, Owsley roots through his bags for a large state-of-the-art conical burr grinder and a white funnel-shaped device to heat water so he can make coffee from beans he grew and roasted at home in Australia. We are truly soulmates after twenty-two years together, and our love is as strong today as it was in the beginning. Bear wanted to be the sound man, and he was not the sound man, and he just never got it, because he had a single vision. Born Augustus Owsley Stanley III in Kentucky on Jan. 19, 1935, he was the grandson of a Kentucky governor and son of a naval commander. Lesh likened the experience of playing through the system to piloting a flying saucer. Would the Summer of Love have ever happened without Stanley, the reclusive acid impresario who turned on the world? See Tom Taylor's account of his life and times published late last year in Far Out magazine. His nickname, Bear, reputedly was inspired by the profuse . But he also inspired another famed rock band, Steely . 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. On January 31, 1970, at 3:00 am, 19 members of the Grateful Dead and crew were arrested for possession of a variety of drugs at a French Quarter hotel after returning from a concert at The Warehouse in New Orleans. 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 little bears found in the form of stickers and stuffed dolls are taken from Bob Thomas' album cover art. Jr. Elected governor in 1915, he became a United States senator and served on the commission that oversaw construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway. [5][7][8], Stanley was the scion of a political family from Kentucky. Died at age 76 in an automobile accident. As above, so below. We called it the microcosm and the macrocosm. Night after night during the summer months, Owsley can be found stalking Bufo marinus, the species of poisonous toads (whose venom, Owsley insists, wont get you high) first introduced into Australia in 1935 in the mistaken belief that they would help control the cane beetle. Augustus Owsley Stanley III (later nicknamed Bear) was born on Jan. 19, 1935. And we are tiny reflections of the mind that is creating the universe. Stanley also helped Robert Thomas design the band's trademark skull logo. Until then, the drug had been available in America only to those conducting serious medical research. 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. Lansing State Journal (MI.) The new lab was set up in the basement of a house across the street from the Denver Zoo in early 1967. There are three septic systems on the property, a hot tub, three kitchens and a large gym where he works out regularly. Taking acid soon became the watermark. During the past month, he has dispensed with 1,400 of them. That got good and weird., By the time the Dead returned to San Francisco in April, Owsley had already made it plain to the band that as far as he was concerned, there was only one way to do everything: his way. 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 . Two nights later, the junkies returned only to discover that Owsley had fortified the place, hired some people and armed ourselves to the teeth. A running gun battle ensued, with one of the junkies taking a bullet through his arm. And he was probably right. Years later, Lesh would write that Garcia once told him, Theres nothing wrong with Bear that a few billion less brain cells wouldnt cure., The bands impatience with how long it took Owsley to set up its equipment and then take it back down again soon led to a parting of the ways. The police were looking for methamphetamine but found only LSD, which was not illegal at the time. 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. Owsley and Scully finally met a few weeks before the Trips Festival in the fall of 1965. Some of his other recorded works include Bears Choice; Big Brother and the Holding Company Live at the Carousel Ballroom, June 23, 1968; The Allman Brothers Band Fillmore East, February 1970; and the acoustic Jerry Garcia bluegrass-band albums Old & in the Way, That High Lonesome Sound and Breakdown. By his own account, between 1965 and 1967, Stanley produced no less than 500 grams of LSD, amounting to a little more . 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. And we were just musicians in this house, and we were guinea-pigging more or less continually. 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. The key element was "turn on" and it was Owsley . Cancers grow on glucose. In the Oxford English dictionary, the word Owsley is listed as a noun describing a particularly pure form of LSD. These are the most extensive files there are of our music from this time. 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.. Source: medium.com. 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. Owsley had gotten the recipe for STP from a former Dow chemist named Alexander Shulgin(who would later reintroduce Ecstasy to the rave generation). The "Save The Music!" It all seemed to fit together. 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"). Despite maintaining a 3.4 grade point average with minimal effort, he dropped out because of his disinclination for slide rules and mechanical drawing. Almost forty years to the day after he blew minds at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June 1967, with a brand-new batch of Monterey Purple, Owsley is checking out of a motel in nearby Carmel. 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. . 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. 5 out of 5 stars (955) $ 29.95. After Stanley got out of prison in late 1972, he, Dan Healy and Mark Raizene of the Grateful Dead . Youre dealing with part of the unconscious mind that they used to define as angels and devils. 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. [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. Garcia was the center. [6], He died in a car accident in Australia (where he had taken citizenship in 1996) on March 12, 2011. 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. We would liken it to alchemy. They had no skills at it. Courtesy Legacy. 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 Dead's international fan "family". Owsley was sent to Terminal Island Federal Prison, a medium-security lockup in San Pedro where Charles Manson had also done time. 94tracks reflecting a broad cross-section of musical forms, including bluegrass, blues, folk, country, swing jazz, and rockabilly, among others. [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. Owsley Stanley (a.k.a. How did the court musician of the Maharaja, a man called the "Bach of India," and "perhaps the greatest musician in the world" find himself playing to a psychedelic crowd at the Family Dog, a countercultural beacon on the edge of Western civilization, with Owsley mixing the sound?
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