Acid King: Psychedelic Icon Owsley 'Bear' Stanley, Dead at 76.
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Uploaded by TheHaightAshbury on Mar 15, 2011
Daily News @ http://RevolutionNews.US — (N. Queensland Australia) Owsley "Bear" Stanley, a 1960s counterculture figure who flooded the flower power scene with LSD and was an early benefactor of the Grateful Dead, died in a car crash in his adopted home country of Australia on Sunday, his family said. He was believed to be 76.
The renegade grandson of a former governor of Kentucky, Stanley helped lay the foundation for the psychedelic era by producing more than a million doses of LSD at his labs in San Francisco's Bay Area.
"He made acid so pure and wonderful that people like Jimi Hendrix wrote hit songs about it and others named their band in its honor," former rock 'n' roll tour manager Sam Cutler wrote in his 2008 memoirs "You Can't Always Get What You Want."
Hendrix's song "Purple Haze" was reputedly inspired by a batch of Stanley's product, though the guitarist denied any drug link. The ear-splitting blues-psychedelic combo Blue Cheer took its named from another batch.
Stanley briefly managed the Grateful Dead, and oversaw every aspect of their live sound at a time when little thought was given to amplification in public venues. His tape recordings of Dead concerts were turned into live albums.
The Dead wrote about him in their song "Alice D. Millionaire" after a 1967 arrest prompted a newspaper to describe Stanley as an "LSD millionaire." Steely Dan's 1976 single "Kid Charlemagne" was loosely inspired by Stanley's exploits.
According to a 2007 profile in the San Francisco Chronicle, Stanley started cooking LSD after discovering the recipe in a chemistry journal at the University of California, Berkeley.
The police raided his first lab in 1966, but Stanley successfully sued for the return of his equipment. After a marijuana bust in 1970, he went to prison for two years.
"I wound up doing time for something I should have been rewarded for," he told the Chronicle's Joel Selvin. "What I did was a community service, the way I look at it. I was punished for political reasons. Absolutely meaningless. Was I a criminal? No. I was a good member of society. Only my society and the one making the laws are different."
He emigrated to the tropical Australian state of Queensland in the early 1980s, apparently fearful of a new ice age, and sold enamel sculptures on the Internet. He lost one of his vocal cords to cancer.
Stanley was born Augustus Owsley Stanley III in Kentucky, a state governed by his namesake grandfather from 1915 to 1919. He served in the U.S. Air Force for 18 months, studied ballet in Los Angeles, and then enrolled at UC Berkeley. In addition to being an LSD advocate, he adhered to an all-meat diet.
A statement released by Cutler on behalf of Stanley's family said the car crash occurred near his home in far north Queensland. He is survived by his wife Sheila, four children, eight grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
Source: http://arts.nationalpost.com/2011/03/13/psychedelic-icon-owsley-stanley-dies-...
Owsley Stanley, counterculture producer of LSD - Kansas City Star
Pioneering audio engineer Owsley 'Bear' Stanley - Gizmag
Owsley Stanley, Famed Artisan of Acid, - New York Times
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@TheQuicksilverdog i know now ...i thought he said niggers and i was like really? lol
boots410420 3 days ago
@TheQuicksilverdog Only thing the Fillmore "niggers" where handing out, was their fists, and anger, back then. Knew many girls that where raped, after Cadilacs snatched em up on the corners!!! Hens, the death of hippy, happened! Hell, even Bear split the scene to a more beautiful place NE Austrailia. May he R:I:P
PS; Good comment thou, John.
Jenscool 4 days ago
@boots410420 The Diggers were handing out LSD. Hope that was a misspell.
TheQuicksilverdog 4 days ago
The diggers, acting troupe
kooneya 2 weeks ago
the niggers were handing out lsd at 2:27?
boots410420 5 months ago
Anyone who needs a chemical to experience "ego death" and to "expand" their minds and full of it
catnip213 6 months ago
my ego died
BOKNOWSCOMPUTERS 7 months ago
I Expanded my mind with acid. i experienced ego death.
BOKNOWSCOMPUTERS 7 months ago
John Cipollina's guitar playing is more mind expanding than any chemical Owsley
or any other hack can come up with.
sgrroiii 8 months ago
Garcia said "There's nothing wrong with Bear that a few billion less brain cells wouldn't take care of." He was quite the thinker. My friend spoke to him at a show in California in the '80's and said he was very friendly. Also said he was extremely buff and very much in shape. Pete Townshend took a dose of Owsley's special Monterey Pop acid and didn't do any more drugs for two years afterwards! It spun him that bad. Kids today have no idea what real acid is. RIP bear.
09jackstraw 8 months ago