Owsley Stanley
Encyclopedia
Owsley Stanley also known as Bear, was an essential and transitional personality in the development of the San Francisco Bay counter-culture. Spanning the Beat
-era years of Ken Kesey
's Merry Pranksters scenes, he was equally pivotal to the explosion of 1960's Psychedelia
culture. As a brilliant and eclectic crafts-person he eventually became best known under the name of 'Owsley'- the paradigmatic LSD
"cook" (underground chemist); a magician-like figure. Stanley's inventive spirit was even further known; Under the professional name of Bear he is internationally celebrated an iconic figure (producer, engineer & artist) to psychedelic rock
band the Grateful Dead
's international fan 'family'-- still honored among subsequent generations of Jam band
music fans.
Bear rose to prominence initially as an early road manager for The Grateful Dead, a band he met when Kesey had them come to an Owsley Acid test
party. Bear's technical interests stimulated the band's developing interest in electronic, acoustic and mystical properties of sound. By 1972 the band enjoyed a pre-eminent reputation as a touring audiophile experience. As their eminent sound engineer, he frequently recorded live tapes behind his mixing board, and Bear was pivotal in "The Dead" becoming the first performers since Les Paul
to custom-develop high-fidelity audio components and sound-systems for performance needs. Soon legendary "Dead tours" had evolved around gigantic "Wall of Sound
" stacks of Stanley-designed equipment, a highly innovative feat of audio engineering,. His expert innovations made it possible for Dead fans to enjoy the full sonic range of the concert even beyond the confines of commercial venues.
Stanley-Bear' unique combination of technical ability and aesthetic ambitions helped develop unprecedented demand for Dead performances. His eclectic interests encouraged The Dead to experiment further afield, playing in dramatic and remote locales. "Dead Shows" gained a reputation for being globe-spanning social-caravans with ambitious service economies. Bear's energies were central to founding both Marin County's high-end music-instrument makers Alembic Inc
and concert-sound manufacturer Meyer Sound. And among the first businesses he developed to help subsidize the band's beginnings, his work with popular chemistry earned him a truly iconic status.
Stanley was the first private individual to manufacture mass quantities of LSD. And he did it with panache, evidently more skillfully and consistently than anyone has since. Stanley became most famous as 'Owsley', the clever and iconic yet rarely photographed wizard of the difficult neuro-chemical magic behind LSD. Between 1965 and 1967, Stanley produced more than 1.25 million doses of LSD. These quantities provided a crucial catalyst for the wide popularity of the drug, and the consequent emergence of an anti-authoritarian, anti-war counter-culture. From the 'Sunset Strip Riots'
in Los Angeles to the Summer of Love
in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury (which historian Charles Perry described as "the biggest LSD party in history." ), "Owsley" as an ad-hoc trademark became associated with inexpensive, generously-portioned LSD of reliable professional quality- and thus for "good trips".
Stanley died in an automobile accident in Australia on March 13, 2011.
of a political family from Kentucky. His father was a government attorney; his namesake and grandfather, A. Owsley Stanley
, who was a member of the United States Senate
after serving as Governor of Kentucky
and in the U.S. House of Representatives
, campaigned, amongst other issues, against alcohol
Prohibition
in the 1920s. Another relative, William Owsley
, also served as Governor of Kentucky in the mid-19th century.
for bringing alcoholic beverages onto campus, then self-committed to St. Elizabeths Hospital
in Washington, D.C.
He studied engineering at the University of Virginia
before dropping out; in 1956, when Stanley was twenty-one, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force
and served for eighteen months before being discharged in 1958. Later, inspired by a 1958 performance of the Bolshoi Ballet
, he began studying ballet in Los Angeles, supporting himself for a time as a professional dancer. In 1963, he enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley
where he became involved in the psychoactive drug scene. 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. He beat the charges and successfully sued for the return of his equipment. The police were looking for methamphetamine
but found only LSD, which was not illegal at the time.
Stanley moved to Los Angeles to pursue the production of LSD. He used his Berkeley lab proceeds to buy 500 grams of lysergic acid monohydrate
, the basis for LSD. His first shipment arrived on March 30, 1965. He produced 300,000 capsules (270 micrograms each) of LSD by May 1965 and then returned to the Bay Area.
In September 1965, Stanley became the primary LSD supplier to Ken Kesey
and the Merry Pranksters
; by this point Sandoz
LSD was hard to come by and "Owsley Acid" had become the new standard. He was featured (most prominently his freak-out at the Muir Beach Acid Test in November 1965) in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
, a book detailing the history of Kesey and the Merry Pranksters by Tom Wolfe
. Stanley attended the Watts Acid Test on February 12, 1966 with his new apprentice Tim Scully
and provided the LSD.
Stanley also provided LSD to The Beatles
during filming of Magical Mystery Tour
.
featuring only the lightning bolt skull on the cover, although the symbol predates the namesake album by eight years). The 13-point lightning bolt was derived from a stencil Stanley created to spray-paint on the Grateful Dead's equipment boxes—he wanted an easily identifiable mark to help the crew find the Dead's equipment in the jumble of multiple bands' identical black equipment boxes at festivals. 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 top of the circle was orange and the bottom blue. I couldn't read the name of the firm, and so was just looking at the shape. 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." Stanley suggested to Thomas that the words "Grateful Dead" might be drawn beneath the red white and blue circled bolt in such a way that it looked like a skull; Thomas went off and returned with the now familiar Grateful Dead icon, having discarded the hidden word concept. The lightning-adorned skull logo made its first appearance on the 1973 release, History of the Grateful Dead, Volume 1: Bear's Choice, an album put together by Stanley as his tribute to his dear friend, the recently deceased Grateful Dead co-founder Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, from recordings Stanley had made in 1970. The iconic "Dancing Bears" also first appeared on the reverse cover of this album, painted by Thomas as an inside reference to Stanley; dubbed "Bear" as a young teen when he sprouted body hair before the rest of his friends, he had studied ballet in his early 20s and displayed a distinctive style of dancing while tripping on LSD at shows—becoming what his friends called "The Dancing Bear".
During his time as the sound engineer for the Grateful Dead, he started what became a long-term practice of recording the Dead while they rehearsed and performed. His initial motivation for creating what he dubs his "sonic journal" was to improve his ability to mix the sound, but the fortuitous result was an extensive trove of recordings from the heyday of the San Francisco concert/dance scene in the mid-sixties. Focusing on quality and clarity of sound, he favored simplicity in his miking, and his tapes are widely touted as being unrivaled live recordings. In addition to his large archive of Dead performances, Stanley made numerous live recordings of other leading 1960s and 70s artists appearing in San Francisco, including Quicksilver Messenger Service
, Jefferson Airplane
, early Jefferson Starship
, Old and In The Way
, Janis Joplin
, Big Brother and the Holding Company
, Taj Mahal
, Santana
, Miles Davis
, The Flying Burrito Brothers
, Jimi Hendrix
, Johnny Cash
, Blue Cheer
(a band that took its name from the nickname of Stanley's LSD), and many others. While many Stanley recordings have been released, many more remain unissued.
Scully set up the new lab in the basement of a house across the street from the Denver zoo in early 1967. Scully made the LSD in the Denver lab while Stanley tableted the product in Orinda, California
. However, Stanley and Scully did not produce the psychedelic DOM
, better known under its street name STP
.
In late 1967, Stanley's Orinda lab was raided by police; he was found in possession of 350,000 doses of LSD and 1,500 doses of STP. His defense was that the illegal substances were for personal use, but he was found guilty and sentenced to three years in prison
. The same year, Stanley officially shortened his name to "Owsley Stanley".
After he was released from prison, Stanley went on to do more sound work for the Grateful Dead. Later, he would work as a broadcast television engineer.
On January 31, 1970 3:00am, 19 members of the Grateful Dead
and crew were busted at a French Quarter hotel after returning from a concert at "The Warehouse" in New Orleans, Louisiana
for a combination of drugs. According to the Rolling Stones magazine No. 53, March 7,1970 issue. "Everybody in the band, except Pigpen and Tom Constanten, was included in the bust, along with several members of the their retinue and some local people. An added bonus for the New Orleans heat was a man listed as Owsley Stanley, 35, of Alexandria, Virginia
, a technician for the band, booked with illegal possession of narcotics, dangerous non-narcotics, LSD, and barbiturates. "King of Acid Arrested," the local press bubbled." Apparently another west-coast base rock band, Jefferson Airplane
was busted two weeks prior at the same situation. According to an article in the State Times of Baton Rouge, Stanley had identified himself to the police as "The King of Acid" and technician of the band. From this incident, the song "Truckin" was written by the Grateful Dead that same year.
where he worked to create sculpture, much of it wearable art.
Stanley made his first public appearance in decades at the Australian ethnobotanical conference Entheogenesis Australis in 2009, giving three talks over his time in Melbourne.
, and that all vegetables are toxic. He claimed to have eaten almost nothing but meat
, eggs
, butter
and cheese
since 1959 and that he believed his body had not aged as much as the bodies of those who eat a more "normal" diet. He was convinced that insulin
, released by the pancreas
when carbohydrates are ingested, is the cause of much damage to human tissue and that diabetes mellitus
is caused by the ingestion of carbohydrates.
Stanley received radiation therapy
in 2004 for throat cancer
, which he first attributed to passive exposure to cigarette smoke at concerts, but which he later discovered was almost certainly caused by the infection of his tonsil with HPV. He credited his low carb diet with starving the tumor of glucose, slowing its growth and preventing its spread enough that it could be successfully treated despite its advanced state at diagnosis.
. He survived by his wife Sheila, four children, eight grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
the day before the state of California, on October 6, 1966, criminalized the drug. The headline inspired the Grateful Dead song "Alice D. Millionaire."
Stanley is mentioned by his first name in the song "Who Needs the Peace Corps?
" by Frank Zappa
and The Mothers of Invention
, which first appeared on the band's 1968 album We're Only In It For The Money
("I'll go to Frisco, buy a wig and sleep on Owsley's floor.").
In "Mirkwood, A Novel About JRR Tolkien" [Steve Hillard, 2011], a fictional character named “Osley” is modeled loosely after Owsley Stanley and is described as a fugitive from the 1960s and the “Henry Ford of Psychedelics.”
An English band named Owsleys Gold were formed in the mid 1990's taking their name and influence from the man himself. Based in Stoke on Trent they received much critical acclaim and were touted as the next best thing to the Stone Roses. However, musical differences ensured the band would not evolve and they eventually disbanded in 1998.
The song 'Owsley' from the Songs for Owsley EP (1996) by the band Spectrum
is an obvious reference to Owsley.
The Steely Dan
song "Kid Charlemagne
" from the 1976 album The Royal Scam
was loosely inspired by Stanley.
Stanley's incarceration is lamented in Hunter S. Thompson
's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" as one of the many signs of the death of the '60s.
Beat
-Film:*Beat , the smallest unit of dramatic action in a play*Beat , a film about writer William Seward Burroughs*Beat , a 1998 Japanese film*Directorial beat, an exchange of behavior between characters in a screenplay...
-era years of Ken Kesey
Ken Kesey
Kenneth Elton "Ken" Kesey was an American author, best known for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , and as a counter-cultural figure who considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. "I was too young to be a beatnik, and too old to be a...
's Merry Pranksters scenes, he was equally pivotal to the explosion of 1960's Psychedelia
Psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...
culture. As a brilliant and eclectic crafts-person he eventually became best known under the name of 'Owsley'- the paradigmatic LSD
LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide and colloquially as acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synaesthesia, an...
"cook" (underground chemist); a magician-like figure. Stanley's inventive spirit was even further known; Under the professional name of Bear he is internationally celebrated an iconic figure (producer, engineer & artist) to psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...
band the Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...
's international fan 'family'-- still honored among subsequent generations of Jam band
Jam band
-Ambiguity:By the late 1990s use of the term jam band also became ambiguous. An editorial at jamband.com suggested that any band of which a primary band such as Phish has done a cover of be included as jam band. The example was including New York post-punk band Talking Heads after Phish performed...
music fans.
Bear rose to prominence initially as an early road manager for The Grateful Dead, a band he met when Kesey had them come to an Owsley Acid test
Acid Tests
The Acid Tests were a series of parties held by Ken Kesey in the San Francisco Bay Area during the mid 1960s, centered entirely around the use of, experimentation with, and advocacy of, the psychedelic drug LSD, also known as "acid."...
party. Bear's technical interests stimulated the band's developing interest in electronic, acoustic and mystical properties of sound. By 1972 the band enjoyed a pre-eminent reputation as a touring audiophile experience. As their eminent sound engineer, he frequently recorded live tapes behind his mixing board, and Bear was pivotal in "The Dead" becoming the first performers since Les Paul
Les Paul
Lester William Polsfuss —known as Les Paul—was an American jazz and country guitarist, songwriter and inventor. He was a pioneer in the development of the solid-body electric guitar which made the sound of rock and roll possible. He is credited with many recording innovations...
to custom-develop high-fidelity audio components and sound-systems for performance needs. Soon legendary "Dead tours" had evolved around gigantic "Wall of Sound
Wall of Sound (Grateful Dead)
The Wall of Sound was an enormous public address system designed specifically for the Grateful Dead's live performances by audio engineer Owsley "Bear" Stanley. Used in 1974, the Wall of Sound fulfilled the band's desire for a distortion-free sound system that could also serve as its own monitoring...
" stacks of Stanley-designed equipment, a highly innovative feat of audio engineering,. His expert innovations made it possible for Dead fans to enjoy the full sonic range of the concert even beyond the confines of commercial venues.
Stanley-Bear' unique combination of technical ability and aesthetic ambitions helped develop unprecedented demand for Dead performances. His eclectic interests encouraged The Dead to experiment further afield, playing in dramatic and remote locales. "Dead Shows" gained a reputation for being globe-spanning social-caravans with ambitious service economies. Bear's energies were central to founding both Marin County's high-end music-instrument makers Alembic Inc
Alembic Inc
Alembic was founded in 1969 and is a manufacturer of high-end electric basses, guitars and preamps.-History:Ron and Susan Wickersham founded Alembic, Inc. in 1969...
and concert-sound manufacturer Meyer Sound. And among the first businesses he developed to help subsidize the band's beginnings, his work with popular chemistry earned him a truly iconic status.
Stanley was the first private individual to manufacture mass quantities of LSD. And he did it with panache, evidently more skillfully and consistently than anyone has since. Stanley became most famous as 'Owsley', the clever and iconic yet rarely photographed wizard of the difficult neuro-chemical magic behind LSD. Between 1965 and 1967, Stanley produced more than 1.25 million doses of LSD. These quantities provided a crucial catalyst for the wide popularity of the drug, and the consequent emergence of an anti-authoritarian, anti-war counter-culture. From the 'Sunset Strip Riots'
Sunset Strip curfew riots
The Sunset Strip curfew riots, also known as the "hippie riots," were a series of clashes that took place between police and young people on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood, California, beginning in the mid-1960s and continuing through the early 1970s....
in Los Angeles to the Summer of Love
Summer of Love
The Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people converged on the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, creating a cultural and political rebellion...
in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury (which historian Charles Perry described as "the biggest LSD party in history." ), "Owsley" as an ad-hoc trademark became associated with inexpensive, generously-portioned LSD of reliable professional quality- and thus for "good trips".
Stanley died in an automobile accident in Australia on March 13, 2011.
Ancestry
Stanley was the scionKinship
Kinship is a relationship between any entities that share a genealogical origin, through either biological, cultural, or historical descent. And descent groups, lineages, etc. are treated in their own subsections....
of a political family from Kentucky. His father was a government attorney; his namesake and grandfather, A. Owsley Stanley
Augustus O. Stanley
Augustus Owsley Stanley I was a politician from the US state of Kentucky. A Democrat, he served as the 38th Governor of Kentucky and also represented the state in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate...
, who was a member of the United States Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
after serving as Governor of Kentucky
Governor of Kentucky
The Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky is the head of the executive branch of government in the U.S. state of Kentucky. Fifty-six men and one woman have served as Governor of Kentucky. The governor's term is four years in length; since 1992, incumbents have been able to seek re-election once...
and in the U.S. House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
, campaigned, amongst other issues, against alcohol
Alcoholic beverage
An alcoholic beverage is a drink containing ethanol, commonly known as alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are divided into three general classes: beers, wines, and spirits. They are legally consumed in most countries, and over 100 countries have laws regulating their production, sale, and consumption...
Prohibition
Prohibition in the United States
Prohibition in the United States was a national ban on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol, in place from 1920 to 1933. The ban was mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and the Volstead Act set down the rules for enforcing the ban, as well as defining which...
in the 1920s. Another relative, William Owsley
William Owsley
William Owsley was an associate justice on the Kentucky Court of Appeals and the 16th Governor of Kentucky. He also served in both houses of the Kentucky General Assembly and was Kentucky Secretary of State under Governor James Turner Morehead.Owsley studied law under John Boyle...
, also served as Governor of Kentucky in the mid-19th century.
Early life
He was expelled from the Charlotte Hall Military AcademyCharlotte Hall Military Academy
Charlotte Hall Military Academy, located at Charlotte Hall, Maryland, was established as Charlotte Hall School in 1774 by Queen Charlotte to provide for the liberal and pious education of youth to better fit them for the discharge of their duties for the United States...
for bringing alcoholic beverages onto campus, then self-committed to St. Elizabeths Hospital
St. Elizabeths Hospital
St. Elizabeths Hospital is a psychiatric hospital operated by the District of Columbia Department of Mental Health. It was the first large-scale, federally-run psychiatric hospital in the United States. Housing several thousand patients at its peak, St. Elizabeths had a fully functioning...
in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
He studied engineering at the University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
before dropping out; in 1956, when Stanley was twenty-one, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
and served for eighteen months before being discharged in 1958. Later, inspired by a 1958 performance of the Bolshoi Ballet
Bolshoi Ballet
The Bolshoi Ballet is an internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Russia. Founded in 1776, the Bolshoi is among the world's oldest ballet companies, however it only achieved worldwide acclaim by the early 20th century, when Moscow became the...
, he began studying ballet in Los Angeles, supporting himself for a time as a professional dancer. In 1963, he enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
where he became involved in the psychoactive drug scene. 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. He beat the charges and successfully sued for the return of his equipment. The police were looking for methamphetamine
Methamphetamine
Methamphetamine is a psychostimulant of the phenethylamine and amphetamine class of psychoactive drugs...
but found only LSD, which was not illegal at the time.
Stanley moved to Los Angeles to pursue the production of LSD. He used his Berkeley lab proceeds to buy 500 grams of lysergic acid monohydrate
Lysergic acid
Lysergic acid, also known as D-lysergic acid and -lysergic acid, is a precursor for a wide range of ergoline alkaloids that are produced by the ergot fungus and some plants. Amides of lysergic acid, lysergamides, are widely used as pharmaceuticals and as psychedelic drugs...
, the basis for LSD. His first shipment arrived on March 30, 1965. He produced 300,000 capsules (270 micrograms each) of LSD by May 1965 and then returned to the Bay Area.
In September 1965, Stanley became the primary LSD supplier to Ken Kesey
Ken Kesey
Kenneth Elton "Ken" Kesey was an American author, best known for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , and as a counter-cultural figure who considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. "I was too young to be a beatnik, and too old to be a...
and the Merry Pranksters
Merry Pranksters
The Merry Pranksters were a group of people who formed around American author Ken Kesey in 1964 and sometimes lived communally at his homes in California and Oregon...
; by this point Sandoz
Novartis
Novartis International AG is a multinational pharmaceutical company based in Basel, Switzerland, ranking number three in sales among the world-wide industry...
LSD was hard to come by and "Owsley Acid" had become the new standard. He was featured (most prominently his freak-out at the Muir Beach Acid Test in November 1965) in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is a work of literary journalism by Tom Wolfe, published in 1968. Using techniques from the genre of hysterical realism and pioneering new journalism, the "nonfiction novel" tells the story of Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters...
, a book detailing the history of Kesey and the Merry Pranksters by Tom Wolfe
Tom Wolfe
Thomas Kennerly "Tom" Wolfe, Jr. is a best-selling American author and journalist. He is one of the founders of the New Journalism movement of the 1960s and 1970s.-Early life and education:...
. Stanley attended the Watts Acid Test on February 12, 1966 with his new apprentice Tim Scully
Tim Scully
Robert "Tim" Scully is best known in the psychedelic underground for his work in the production of LSD from 1966 to 1969, for which he was indicted in 1973 and convicted in 1974. His best known product, dubbed "Orange Sunshine", was considered the standard for quality LSD in 1969.Scully grew up in...
and provided the LSD.
Stanley also provided LSD to The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
during filming of Magical Mystery Tour
Magical Mystery Tour (film)
Magical Mystery Tour is an hour-long British television film starring The Beatles that originally aired on BBC1 on 26 December 1967...
.
Involvement with the Grateful Dead
Stanley met the members of the Grateful Dead during the acid tests in 1966 and began working with them as their first soundman and helped finance them. Along with his close friend Bob Thomas, he designed the Lightning Bolt Skull Logo, often referred to by fans as "Steal Your Face", "Stealie" or SYF (after the name of the 1976 Grateful Dead albumSteal Your Face
Steal Your Face is a live double album by the Grateful Dead, released in June 1976. The album was recorded live in concert between October 16 and October 20, 1974 at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom as part of the band's then-"farewell run"....
featuring only the lightning bolt skull on the cover, although the symbol predates the namesake album by eight years). The 13-point lightning bolt was derived from a stencil Stanley created to spray-paint on the Grateful Dead's equipment boxes—he wanted an easily identifiable mark to help the crew find the Dead's equipment in the jumble of multiple bands' identical black equipment boxes at festivals. 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 top of the circle was orange and the bottom blue. I couldn't read the name of the firm, and so was just looking at the shape. 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." Stanley suggested to Thomas that the words "Grateful Dead" might be drawn beneath the red white and blue circled bolt in such a way that it looked like a skull; Thomas went off and returned with the now familiar Grateful Dead icon, having discarded the hidden word concept. The lightning-adorned skull logo made its first appearance on the 1973 release, History of the Grateful Dead, Volume 1: Bear's Choice, an album put together by Stanley as his tribute to his dear friend, the recently deceased Grateful Dead co-founder Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, from recordings Stanley had made in 1970. The iconic "Dancing Bears" also first appeared on the reverse cover of this album, painted by Thomas as an inside reference to Stanley; dubbed "Bear" as a young teen when he sprouted body hair before the rest of his friends, he had studied ballet in his early 20s and displayed a distinctive style of dancing while tripping on LSD at shows—becoming what his friends called "The Dancing Bear".
During his time as the sound engineer for the Grateful Dead, he started what became a long-term practice of recording the Dead while they rehearsed and performed. His initial motivation for creating what he dubs his "sonic journal" was to improve his ability to mix the sound, but the fortuitous result was an extensive trove of recordings from the heyday of the San Francisco concert/dance scene in the mid-sixties. Focusing on quality and clarity of sound, he favored simplicity in his miking, and his tapes are widely touted as being unrivaled live recordings. In addition to his large archive of Dead performances, Stanley made numerous live recordings of other leading 1960s and 70s artists appearing in San Francisco, including Quicksilver Messenger Service
Quicksilver Messenger Service
Quicksilver Messenger Service is an American psychedelic rock band, formed in 1965 in San Francisco.-Introduction:Quicksilver Messenger Service gained wide popularity in the Bay Area and, through their recordings, with psychedelic rock enthusiasts around the globe and several of their albums ranked...
, Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band formed in San Francisco in 1965. A pioneer of the psychedelic rock movement, Jefferson Airplane was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success....
, early Jefferson Starship
Jefferson Starship
Jefferson Starship is an American rock band formed in the early 1970s. The group is a spin-off from the iconic 1960s psychedelic/folk group Jefferson Airplane. The band has undergone several major changes in personnel and genres through the years while retaining the same Jefferson Starship name...
, Old and In The Way
Old and in the Way
Old & in the Way was a bluegrass supergroup in the 1970s. The group performed traditional tunes such as "Pig in a Pen" as well as bluegrass-flavoured versions of The Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses" and Peter Rowan's "Panama Red"....
, Janis Joplin
Janis Joplin
Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band...
, Big Brother and the Holding Company
Big Brother and the Holding Company
Big Brother and the Holding Company is an American rock band that formed in San Francisco in 1965 as part of the same psychedelic music scene that produced the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Jefferson Airplane. They are best known as the band that featured Janis Joplin as their...
, Taj Mahal
Taj Mahal (musician)
Henry Saint Clair Fredericks , who uses the stage name Taj Mahal, is an American Grammy Award winning blues musician. He incorporates elements of world music into his music...
, Santana
Santana (band)
Santana is a rock band based around guitarist Carlos Santana and founded in the late 1960s. It first came to public attention after their performing the song "Soul Sacrifice" at the Woodstock Festival in 1969, when their Latin rock provided a contrast to other acts on the bill...
, Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
, The Flying Burrito Brothers
The Flying Burrito Brothers
The Flying Burrito Brothers was an early country rock band, best known for its influential debut album,The Gilded Palace of Sin . Although the group is most often mentioned in connection with country rock legends Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman, the group underwent many personnel changes.-Original...
, Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
, Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash
John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...
, Blue Cheer
Blue Cheer
Blue Cheer was an American psychedelic blues-rock band that initially performed and recorded in the late 1960s and early 1970s and was sporadically active until 2009...
(a band that took its name from the nickname of Stanley's LSD), and many others. While many Stanley recordings have been released, many more remain unissued.
Richmond LSD lab
Stanley and Scully built electronic equipment for the Grateful Dead until late spring 1966. At this point Stanley rented a house in Point Richmond, California, and he, Scully, and Melissa Cargill (Stanley's girlfriend who was a skilled chemist introduced to Stanley by a former girlfriend, Susan Cowper) set up a lab in the basement. The Point Richmond lab turned out more than 300,000 tablets (270 micrograms each) of LSD they dubbed "White Lightning". LSD became illegal in California on October 6, 1966, and Scully wanted to set up a new lab in Denver, Colorado.Scully set up the new lab in the basement of a house across the street from the Denver zoo in early 1967. Scully made the LSD in the Denver lab while Stanley tableted the product in Orinda, California
Orinda, California
-2010:The 2010 United States Census reported that Orinda had a population of 17,643. The population density was 1,389.5 people per square mile . The racial makeup of Orinda was 14,533 White, 149 African American, 22 Native American, 2,016 Asian, 24 Pacific Islander, 122 from other races, and...
. However, Stanley and Scully did not produce the psychedelic DOM
2,5-Dimethoxy-4-methylamphetamine
2,5-Dimethoxy-4-methylamphetamine is a psychedelic and a substituted amphetamine...
, better known under its street name STP
2,5-Dimethoxy-4-methylamphetamine
2,5-Dimethoxy-4-methylamphetamine is a psychedelic and a substituted amphetamine...
.
Legal trouble
STP was distributed in the summer of 1967 in 20 mg tablets and quickly acquired a bad reputation. Stanley and Scully made trial batches of 10 mg tablets and then STP mixed with LSD in a few hundred yellow tablets but soon ceased production of STP. Stanley and Scully produced about 196 grams of LSD in 1967, but 96 grams of this was confiscated by the authorities.In late 1967, Stanley's Orinda lab was raided by police; he was found in possession of 350,000 doses of LSD and 1,500 doses of STP. His defense was that the illegal substances were for personal use, but he was found guilty and sentenced to three years in prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
. The same year, Stanley officially shortened his name to "Owsley Stanley".
After he was released from prison, Stanley went on to do more sound work for the Grateful Dead. Later, he would work as a broadcast television engineer.
On January 31, 1970 3:00am, 19 members of the Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...
and crew were busted at a French Quarter hotel after returning from a concert at "The Warehouse" in New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...
for a combination of drugs. According to the Rolling Stones magazine No. 53, March 7,1970 issue. "Everybody in the band, except Pigpen and Tom Constanten, was included in the bust, along with several members of the their retinue and some local people. An added bonus for the New Orleans heat was a man listed as Owsley Stanley, 35, of Alexandria, Virginia
Alexandria, Virginia
Alexandria is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of 2009, the city had a total population of 139,966. Located along the Western bank of the Potomac River, Alexandria is approximately six miles south of downtown Washington, D.C.Like the rest of northern Virginia, as well as...
, a technician for the band, booked with illegal possession of narcotics, dangerous non-narcotics, LSD, and barbiturates. "King of Acid Arrested," the local press bubbled." Apparently another west-coast base rock band, Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band formed in San Francisco in 1965. A pioneer of the psychedelic rock movement, Jefferson Airplane was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success....
was busted two weeks prior at the same situation. According to an article in the State Times of Baton Rouge, Stanley had identified himself to the police as "The King of Acid" and technician of the band. From this incident, the song "Truckin" was written by the Grateful Dead that same year.
Post-Grateful Dead career
A naturalized Australian citizen since 1996, Stanley and his wife Sheilah lived in the bush of Far Northern Tropical QueenslandFar North Queensland
Far North Queensland, or FNQ, is the northernmost part of the Australian state of Queensland. The region, which contains a large section of the Tropical North Queensland area, stretches from the city of Cairns north to the Torres Strait...
where he worked to create sculpture, much of it wearable art.
Stanley made his first public appearance in decades at the Australian ethnobotanical conference Entheogenesis Australis in 2009, giving three talks over his time in Melbourne.
Diet and health
Stanley believed that the natural human diet is a totally carnivorous one, thus making it a no-carbohydrate dietNo-carbohydrate diet
A no-carbohydrate diet is described as human carnivorism. It excludes dietary consumption of all carbohydrates and suggests fat as the main source of energy with sufficient protein...
, and that all vegetables are toxic. He claimed to have eaten almost nothing but meat
Meat
Meat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...
, eggs
Egg (food)
Eggs are laid by females of many different species, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, and have probably been eaten by mankind for millennia. Bird and reptile eggs consist of a protective eggshell, albumen , and vitellus , contained within various thin membranes...
, butter
Butter
Butter is a dairy product made by churning fresh or fermented cream or milk. It is generally used as a spread and a condiment, as well as in cooking applications, such as baking, sauce making, and pan frying...
and cheese
Cheese
Cheese is a generic term for a diverse group of milk-based food products. Cheese is produced throughout the world in wide-ranging flavors, textures, and forms....
since 1959 and that he believed his body had not aged as much as the bodies of those who eat a more "normal" diet. He was convinced that insulin
Insulin
Insulin is a hormone central to regulating carbohydrate and fat metabolism in the body. Insulin causes cells in the liver, muscle, and fat tissue to take up glucose from the blood, storing it as glycogen in the liver and muscle....
, released by the pancreas
Pancreas
The pancreas is a gland organ in the digestive and endocrine system of vertebrates. It is both an endocrine gland producing several important hormones, including insulin, glucagon, and somatostatin, as well as a digestive organ, secreting pancreatic juice containing digestive enzymes that assist...
when carbohydrates are ingested, is the cause of much damage to human tissue and that diabetes mellitus
Diabetes mellitus
Diabetes mellitus, often simply referred to as diabetes, is a group of metabolic diseases in which a person has high blood sugar, either because the body does not produce enough insulin, or because cells do not respond to the insulin that is produced...
is caused by the ingestion of carbohydrates.
Stanley received radiation therapy
Radiation therapy
Radiation therapy , radiation oncology, or radiotherapy , sometimes abbreviated to XRT or DXT, is the medical use of ionizing radiation, generally as part of cancer treatment to control malignant cells.Radiation therapy is commonly applied to the cancerous tumor because of its ability to control...
in 2004 for throat cancer
Head and neck cancer
Head and neck cancer refers to a group of biologically similar cancers that start in the upper aerodigestive tract, including the lip, oral cavity , nasal cavity , paranasal sinuses, pharynx, and larynx. 90% of head and neck cancers are squamous cell carcinomas , originating from the mucosal lining...
, which he first attributed to passive exposure to cigarette smoke at concerts, but which he later discovered was almost certainly caused by the infection of his tonsil with HPV. He credited his low carb diet with starving the tumor of glucose, slowing its growth and preventing its spread enough that it could be successfully treated despite its advanced state at diagnosis.
Death
Stanley died after an automobile accident in Australia on March 13, 2011. A statement released on behalf of Stanley's family said the car crash occurred near his home in Mareeba, QueenslandMareeba, Queensland
Mareeba is a town on the Atherton Tableland in Far North Queensland, Australia. The town is above sea level on the confluence of the Barron River, Granite Creek and Emerald Creek. The town's name is derived from an Aboriginal word meaning meeting of the waters...
. He survived by his wife Sheila, four children, eight grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
Cultural references
A newspaper headline identifying Stanley as an "LSD Millionaire" ran in the Los Angeles TimesLos Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
the day before the state of California, on October 6, 1966, criminalized the drug. The headline inspired the Grateful Dead song "Alice D. Millionaire."
Stanley is mentioned by his first name in the song "Who Needs the Peace Corps?
Who Needs the Peace Corps?
"Who Needs the Peace Corps?" is the second track on the 1968 album We're Only in It for the Money by Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention....
" by Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
and The Mothers of Invention
The Mothers of Invention
The Mothers of Invention were an American band active from 1964 to 1969, and again from 1970 to 1975.They mainly performed works by, and were the original recording group of, US composer and guitarist Frank Zappa , although other members have had the occasional writing credit...
, which first appeared on the band's 1968 album We're Only In It For The Money
We're Only in It for the Money
We're Only in It For the Money is the third studio album by The Mothers of Invention, released in March 1968. The album peaked at number thirty on the Billboard 200...
("I'll go to Frisco, buy a wig and sleep on Owsley's floor.").
In "Mirkwood, A Novel About JRR Tolkien" [Steve Hillard, 2011], a fictional character named “Osley” is modeled loosely after Owsley Stanley and is described as a fugitive from the 1960s and the “Henry Ford of Psychedelics.”
An English band named Owsleys Gold were formed in the mid 1990's taking their name and influence from the man himself. Based in Stoke on Trent they received much critical acclaim and were touted as the next best thing to the Stone Roses. However, musical differences ensured the band would not evolve and they eventually disbanded in 1998.
The song 'Owsley' from the Songs for Owsley EP (1996) by the band Spectrum
Peter Kember
Peter Kember is a British musician and producer, more usually known as Sonic Boom, and was a founding member of alternative rock band Spacemen 3....
is an obvious reference to Owsley.
The Steely Dan
Steely Dan
Steely Dan is an American rock band; its core members are Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. The band's popularity peaked in the late 1970s, with the release of seven albums blending elements of jazz, rock, funk, R&B, and pop...
song "Kid Charlemagne
Kid Charlemagne
"Kid Charlemagne" is a song by the rock group Steely Dan, which was released as a single from their 1976 album The Royal Scam. It is notable as a fusion of a funk rhythm and jazz harmonies with rock and roll instrumentals and lyrical style, as well as a very famous guitar solo by jazz-fusion...
" from the 1976 album The Royal Scam
The Royal Scam
The Royal Scam is the fifth album by Steely Dan, originally released by ABC Records in 1976. The album went gold and peaked at #15 on the charts. The Royal Scam features more prominent guitar work than other Steely Dan albums...
was loosely inspired by Stanley.
Stanley's incarceration is lamented in Hunter S. Thompson
Hunter S. Thompson
Hunter Stockton Thompson was an American journalist and author who wrote The Rum Diary , Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 .He is credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of reporting where reporters involve themselves in the action to...
's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" as one of the many signs of the death of the '60s.
External links
- Owsley's website
- "For the unrepentant patriarch of LSD, long, strange trip winds back to Bay Area" San Francisco ChronicleSan Francisco Chroniclethumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
July 12, 2007 - Obituary from Reuters.com
- Celebstoner.com report of Owsley Stanley's Death