March 14, 2011. The Owsley Stanley Foundation is dedicated to preserving and sharing the experience of the. The same year, Stanley officially shortened his name to "Owsley Stanley". 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. Tom Sizemore, Heat and Saving Private Ryan Actor, Dead at 61 The effort to preserve these historically vital recordings is estimated to cost between $300,000 $400,000. 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. In July 1968, Owsley rejoined the Dead. The sound of Jerry Garcias guitar grabbed hold of Owsley, and he freaked out on acid for the first time. The thing about Owsley, Townshend said, is that when he gave you something, he would take it too. 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. 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. After he was released from prison, Stanley resumed working for the Grateful Dead as their live sound engineer. 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. Served 2 years in prison at one point in his early life. How many people can say that? Owsley also credits his all-meat diet for keeping him alive. I remember the first time I took acid and walked outside, he says, and the cars were kissing the parking meters. During the same week, he also heard the Beatles for the first time. [26], Stanley was confined to federal prison from 1970 to 1972, after a federal judge intervened and revoked his release from the 1967 case. Not a single atmospheric scientist subscribes to the concept of greenhouse gases or global warming they all know the truth., Owsley contends there is nothing people can do to prevent the coming of an ice age storm that he describes as a kind of a gigantic hurricane, a cyclone thousands of miles in diameter, turning with winds of ultrasonic speeds that is one-half the planet in size. This is the Biblical flood of Noah, and the entire portion of the planet underneath the storm will be blown flat and buried under water. Although people speculated for years about how Owsley managed to conceal his stash, no one ever figured it out. Owsley and Scully finally met a few weeks before the Trips Festival in the fall of 1965. I did not buy expensive things. Owsley Stanley. Born in 1935, Owsley was "authentic Bluegrass political royalty." His father was a prominent government attorney and his grandfather, Augustus Owsley Stanley, was elected governor of Kentucky in 1919 and served in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. Concise Comments. During the first week of the course, Id buy my textbooks and read them all through. They had no skills at it. By then, the band was being managed by Lenny Hart, the father of drummer Mickey Hart and a minister who believed God had called upon him to save the Dead from their never-ending financial woes. There diet derived 75-80% of all calories from fat. Reach out if you have questions, or to see how you can support the Owsley Stanley Foundation. The "Save The Music!" [16], Stanley met the members of the Grateful Dead during 1965. .. Former Rolling Stone editor Greenfield's pretty solid, if skimpily researched, book provides an . As the water boils, he packs up a Braun food mixer and the vast array of other gadgets he carries with him. Augustus Bear Owsley Stanley 1967 Gathering of the Tribes. He died in a car crash last week in . In a later interview with Dennis McNally, he opined that he received "just a taste" of his previous position; according to Stanley, "I found on my release from jail that the crew, most of whom had been hired in my absence, did not want anything changed. We had Meet the Beatles! All the occult literature about ceremonial magic warns about being very careful when you start exploring these areas in the mind. And they laughed at me., Even as he was freaking out that night, Owsley experienced the single insight that would shape his life for years to come. Stanley was the first known private individual to manufacture mass quantities of LSD. [18] Along with his close friend Bob Thomas, Stanley designed the band's iconic 'Steal Your Face' lightning bolt-skull logo. When Owsley was eight, his parents separated and his mother took him to Los Angeles. Musicians can adjust it. The police were looking for methamphetamine but found only LSD, which was not illegal at the time. The money flow was very embarrassing, he recalls. I just wanted to know the dose and purity of what I took into my own body. Written by WL Woodward. Counterculture legend Owsley "Bear" Stanley is most closely associated with the Grateful Dead. Link to comments by the Bear on a low carb forum back in 2006. Later, inspired by a 1958 performance of the Bolshoi Ballet, he studied ballet in Los Angeles, supporting himself for a time as a professional dancer. [27], Although Stanley stopped touring with the band following their refusal of his demands, he continued to be employed by the Grateful Dead. 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". He also grew weed in a garden outside his house. In other words, this cancer was living in a desert.. Former Grateful Dead sound engineer Owsley Stanley (left) is seen with Jerry Garcia at the San Diego International Airport in 1968. 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. With his dark-brown goatee and a gold hoop dangling from his left ear, he looks like an older, careworn version of the Edge from U2. Augustus Owsley Stanley III was infamous in the 60s counterculture scene and his legacy reaches further than most. Robert Greenfield. The Owsley Stanley Foundation presents its third chapter: Bears Sonic Journals: Before We Were Them, Jorma Kaukonen & Jack Casady, Veterans Memorial Building, June 28, 1969, available now on CD. I said to him, You guys are fucking around with something that people have known about forever. When Lesh said they also had no sound man, Owsley figured that, based on his audio-engineering experience in radio and television, this was something he could handle. Stanley was charged with illegal possession of narcotics, dangerous non-narcotics, LSD, and barbiturates. Theyre extremely glucose-avid. So of course behind his back, people were sneaking candy bars in. [1] The lightning bolt design came to him after seeing a similar design on a roadside advertisement: "One day in the rain, I looked out the side and saw a sign along the freeway which was a circle with a white bar across it. The altercation led Stanley to request the formal codification of his perceived managerial power over the equipment staff, including unprecedented hire/fire privileges. 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 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. If he lost control of that one cell, there would be nothing left, Wolfe wrote. 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 Denver Post (CO.) Press & Sun . 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. Unable to swallow solid food since the cancer treatments, he laments that he can no longer enjoy dining out with friends. 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. I never took notes when I was in college,he says. The Owsley Stanley Foundation is 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. 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. Get the full owsleystanleyfoundation.org Analytics and market share drilldown here When Owsley asked Lesh what he could do for the band, the bass player said they had no manager and offered him the job. sulver buckle. Augustus Owsley Stanley III (January 19, 1935 March 12, 2011) was an American audio engineer and clandestine chemist. A Pegasus. OWSLEY STANLEY OBITUARY. Augustus Owsley Stanley III was born on Jan. 19, 1935, to a patrician Kentucky family. Lansing State Journal (MI.) 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. Almost before I realized what was happening, the whole affair had gotten completely out of hand. [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. It is articulate. 8 Copy quote. 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. Under the professional name Bear, he was the soundman for the rock band the Grateful Dead, whom he met when Ken Kesey invited them . $40.00. Keith Richards: The Rolling Stone Interview, SST Records Producer Glen Spot Lockett Dead at 72, Glastonbury Co-Organizer Promises Female Headliners in 2024 After All-Male Top Billing This Year, There Were Sidemen. owsleystanleyfoundation.org is ranked #24747 in the Arts & Entertainment > Music category and #5781650 Globally according to December 2022 data. 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. Owsley Stanley (born Augustus Owsley Stanley III, January 19, 1935 - March 12, 2011) also known as Bear, was a figure of the San Francisco Bay counter-culture. 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. Youre dealing with part of the unconscious mind that they used to define as angels and devils. It was the most dangerous, underpaid job I ever had in my life, he says.I was never a real grower. I worked my way up to the top job, he recalls, which was as a line backer for the steam tables, and I traded my two cartons of cigarettes a week for a steak a day from the butcher, and I got all the meat and eggs I needed, and I cooked my own food and had a great time. Transferred to Lompoc, where his job was to wax the dining-room floor, Owsley soon moved on to the maintenance shop, where he used the tools to begin doing exquisitely detailed carvings in wood and stone. Tue 15 Mar 2011 14.49 EDT. 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). [32], Stanley believed a "thermal cataclysm" related to climate change would soon render the Northern Hemisphere largely uninhabitable, and moved to Australia in 1982. He became a naturalized Australian citizen in 1996. [17] He both financed them and worked with them as their first sound engineer. 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. Stanley is known throughout the west as "king of acid." 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. We want to hear it. 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. 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. Until now, he has never been willing to speak extensively about his life. As Dead rhythm guitarist Bob Weir says, Back then, if you got involved in a discussion with him, you kind of had to pack a lunch. Years later, Jerry Garcia would recall, Wed met Owsley at the Acid Test and he got fixated on us. Check out our owsley stanley shirt selection for the very best in unique or custom, handmade pieces from our shops. The new lab was set up in the basement of a house across the street from the Denver Zoo in early 1967. Stanley, known as Bear, earned the moniker "King of Acid . Owsley adored his grandfather, but his relationship with his parents was difficult. Normally, within six months or a year, it has metastasized throughout your body. 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. 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 moved to Australia in 1982, and frequently returned to the United States to sell his jewelry (which commanded high prices) on Grateful Dead tours. Musicians plugged their instruments into amplifiers connected to single-channel speakers. He used his Berkeley lab to buy 500grams of lysergic acid monohydrate, the basis for LSD. He lived in a picturesque Berkeley cottage filled with high-end stereo equipment where he kept an owl to which he fed live mice. 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 . Grateful Dead Archivist Discusses Dicks Picks Series. 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"). I dont eat carbs. Augustus Owsley Stanley III (January 19, 1935 - March 12, 2011) was an American audio engineer and clandestine chemist. The sound turns into something youve never heard before. Immediately following his release, Stanley resumed working for the Grateful Dead as a roadie and sound engineer in the summer of 1972. After obtaining a court order that made the police return his lab equipment, Owsley and Cargill split for Los Angeles. 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. 5 out of 5 stars (955) $ 29.95. Owsley Stanley, an icon of Bay Area counterculture in the 1960s and a longtime associate of the Grateful Dead, died Sunday in a car . [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. Letting vegetable matter go through a carnivorous intestine scratches it up and scars it and causes mucus that interferes with nutrition., For the next six weeks, the Grateful Dead and their girlfriends ate meat and milk for breakfast, lunch and dinner. No improvements for the sound, no new gear, nothing different on stage. His defense was that the illegal substances were for personal use, but he was found guilty and sentenced to three years in prison. Augustus Owsley Stanley III aka Bear was an American audio engineer and an underground drug maker. 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. Country * 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.