Augustus Bear Owsley Stanley - The Woodstock Whisperer After experiencing chest pains seven years ago, Owsley underwent surgery to correct a ninety percent blockage in an artery in his heart that dated back to his teenage years. Augustus Owsley Stanley III aka Bear was an American audio engineer and an underground drug maker. Take out the sun, and the planets all go their own way. The Japanese don't write in alphabetic writing; they write in pictographs. 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 . He died in a car crash last week in . We were officially granted 501(c)(3) nonprofit status by the IRS in December 2012. I did not buy expensive things. 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. Although people speculated for years about how Owsley managed to conceal his stash, no one ever figured it out. This article appeared in the July 12-27, 2007 issue of Rolling Stone. Tripping frequently if not constantly. 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. Owsley "Bear" Stanley the Acid King is remembered by friends Its something that goes from being absolutely inert to so powerful that twenty-five micrograms will cause a change in your consciousness, he says. I never took notes when I was in college,he says. Adopt-A-Reel Program: Tim Scully - Wikipedia Once a year by invitation only, he throws a party attended by friends, family and musicians from all over Australia who play all night long. 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. But he also inspired another famed rock band, Steely . Believing there is no past and no future because everything exists only in present time, it never occurs to him to drive five minutes out of his way to the Monterey Fairgrounds where, forty years ago, his high-powered rocket fuel helped launch the Summer of Love. Neither one of them really wanted to be parents, he says. The Bear) A colourful character, carnivore for over 47 years. In February 1966, Owsley and the Dead moved to Los Angeles for another series of Acid Tests. 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"). Needless to say, the party is electric. He, Scully, and Melissa Cargill (a skilled chemist and Cargill family scion who became Stanley's girlfriend following an introduction by Susan Cowper, a former girlfriend) set up a lab in the basement. Owsley Stanley, famed Grateful Dead soundman and the first person to privately manufacture LSD, lived in the Poet's Corner cottage during the Summer of Love. Augustus Owsley Stanley - Wikipedia 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 . We want to hear it. Owsley Stanley Foundation Merch Mountain Store All Rights reserved. The Point Richmond lab turned out more than 300,000 tablets (270 micrograms each) of LSD, dubbed "White Lightning". Every single note is separately placed in space as well as in time. Stanley also designed the band's trademark skull logo. The foundation is dedicated to restoring and preserving the archive of Stanley's recordings, which he called his "sonic journals".[37][38][39][40][41]. 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. 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 . Stanley was the Dead's audio engineer, longtime friend, and perhaps the most notable LSD chemist in the 1960s. They were all gone. 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. [26], Stanley was confined to federal prison from 1970 to 1972, after a federal judge intervened and revoked his release from the 1967 case. Check out our owsley stanley belt buckles selection for the very best in unique or custom, handmade pieces from our shops. According to an article in the Baton Rouge State Times, Stanley identified himself to the police as "The King of Acid" and technician of the band. [6], He died in a car accident in Australia (where he had taken citizenship in 1996) on March 12, 2011. Send us a tip using our anonymous form. We are truly soulmates after twenty-two years together, and our love is as strong today as it was in the beginning. Based on past evidence, the sea will rise 300 meters, and life in some places will be entirely destroyed. Incredibly, no one called the cops. The alchemist Owsley "Bear" Stanley, who transformed not only the Dead's sound, but American consciousness. 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). Unable to swallow solid food since the cancer treatments, he laments that he can no longer enjoy dining out with friends. We had Meet the Beatles! [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. No improvements for the sound, no new gear, nothing different on stage. Because you were. 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. Until then, the drug had been available in America only to those conducting serious medical research. Our staff is entirely comprised of volunteers, and many of the support services necessary to run the organization have been donated by generous contributors that believe in the mission to save this music before it is lost forever. The original idea was to put recording studio technology into an electric guitar. October 1966: Owsley Stanley, LSD Millionaire - Blogger On December 11th, 1965, the Dead played at the Muir Beach Acid Test in a lodge by the sea in Marin County. The lead and the gold is the lead of the primitive nature into the gold of the enlightened man. 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. If you wanted to be an idiot and do something any way but his, that was your decision. The Owsley Foundation places full page ads in major newspapers that proclaim Christ's Second Coming. The issue is available in the online archive. All of the rest of their calories came from fat. Ifeel as if Ive known you through many lifetimes., You have, Owsley replied, and you will through many more to come.. Pretty Sure this is a Bronze? Stealie Owsley Buckle '83 series He beat the charges and successfully sued for the return of his equipment. 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. Owsley Stanley's 'Sonic Journals': Inside the Tape Vault of a When Owsley was eight, his parents separated and his mother took him to Los Angeles. 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. 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. 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. [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. Country * 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. Bear's website, thebear.org, is still accessible as well, where you can see his jewelry designs and read his stories and essays. The effort to preserve these historically vital recordings is estimated to cost between $300,000 $400,000. His first shipment arrived on March 30, 1965 and he produced 300,000 hits (270 micrograms each) of LSD by May 1965; then he returned to the Bay Area. [10][11] Despite his dearth of formal education, he secured a position as a test engineer with Rocketdyne in Los Angeles; in this capacity, he worked on the SM-64 Navaho supersonic cruise missile. 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.. .. [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 . 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. Technician for Grateful Dead and an LSD cook. 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 . There were no greens or anything he called it rabbit food. , Nor was there any point in trying to argue with Owsley about it. 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. Stanley is known throughout the west as "king of acid." 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. He died Sunday in a car accident in Australia. Concise Comments. 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. 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). The altercation led Stanley to request the formal codification of his perceived managerial power over the equipment staff, including unprecedented hire/fire privileges. 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. A year later, Mario Savio made his historic Free Speech Movement address from atop a police car to student protesters gathered outside Sproul Hall. A year earlier in Los Angeles, narcotics agents had begun picking through their garbage. It all seemed to fit together. Stanley's scientific tutelage influenced Gissen's decision to return to her formal studies and pursue the profession of dentistry; their son, Starfinder, would go on to earn zoology and veterinary medicine degrees from Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania.[23]. In July 1968, Owsley rejoined the Dead. The universe is a creation entirely within a being that is outside time and space, and dreaming what we are. The little bears found in the form of stickers and stuffed dolls are taken from Bob Thomas' album cover art. Had it not been for Sheilah, he says, I dont think I would have survived. 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. 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. 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. . Musicians plugged their instruments into amplifiers connected to single-channel speakers. There were no onstage monitors, so musicians couldnt hear one another. The Wall of Sound fulfilled Owsley's desire for a distortion-free sound system that could also serve as its own monitoring system. Bear: The Life and Times of Augustus Owsley Stanley III 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. If you feel you cant love someone and you are universally told that you must love, you become very guilty., After the aircraft carrier U.S.S. ALWAYS enter lists of addressses (greater than 2) in the Bcc: line. 5 out of 5 stars (955) $ 29.95. Robert Greenfield. We would liken it to alchemy. Owsley Stanley obituary | Drugs | The Guardian In a new biography, find out more about the life of this LSD preacher than ever before. Ego death. The insane life of Owsley Stanley, the famous LSD producer of the 60s owsleystanleyfoundation.org Traffic Analytics & Market Share | Similarweb But he was also an exacting pioneer of live concert sound, a man who helped invent both monitor systems and high . 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. The Denver Post (CO.) Press & Sun . [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 grandson of a Kentucky senator, Owsley found his way to California, discovered drugs, and promptly blew . 'Kid Charlemagne': A Close Reading Of Steely Dan's Ode To - SFist 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 Shirt - Etsy Picture of the Day - Caveman Circus Maddeningly methodical and impossible to control, he has come back to America to take care of business matters while visiting family members and old friends he has not seen in years. 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 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.. Trending Owsley Foundation Written by WL Woodward. And Then There Was David Lindley, See the Beths Deliver Refreshing 'Expert in a Dying Field' Mini-Set on 'CBS Mornings', The YSL Case Is Stretching Fulton County's Justice System to Its Breaking Point, NBA 'Investigating,' Team Suspends Ja Morant After Allegedly Flashing Gun on Social Media. 631 ratings55 reviews. 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. 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. * Augustus Bear Owsley Stanley 1967 Gathering of the Tribes. Owsley Stanley - Man who created 300,000 hits of Acid in his - YouTube 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. Owsley Stanley Foundation Merch Mountain Store; OSF Doc Watson 100 Year Anniversary Tee. When you get to 400, you just totally lose it. Along with other recognition of your generous contribution, if the recording you select is viable for future release by OSF, you will receive a liner note credit. Remembering The Bear: Weird Times With Augustus Owsley Stanley III Berkeley Troll House, where the 'psychedelic elite' partied, has sold for $1.4 million. as Owsley acid." Bears Sonic Journals - Owsley Stanley Foundation [5][7][8], Stanley was the scion of a political family from Kentucky.