Owsley Stanley
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- This article is about the LSD chemist. For the politician, see Augustus O. Stanley.
Owsley Stanley (b. Augustus Owsley Stanley III, January 19, 1935, also known as Owsley or Bear) was an "underground" LSD chemist, the first to produce high quantities of pure LSD. His total production is estimated at around half a kilogram of LSD, or roughly 2 million "hits", although accounts vary widely.
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[edit] History
Stanley's father was a government attorney, and his grandfather, Augustus O. Stanley, was a Senator. Early in life, Stanley served in the U.S. Air Force for eighteen months. Afterwards he enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley in 1963. He became involved in the psychoactive drug scene, and began producing methedrine and LSD in February of 1965.
Stanley's makeshift laboratory was raided by police on February 21, 1965. He beat the charges and successfully sued for the return of his equipment. He briefly lived at Point Richmond, California and sold "meth" for money, which he used to buy and refine LSD with Tim Scully. Each batch of LSD pills were dyed a different color, for quality control purposes, and although all pills had the same dose, urban legends soon developed about the characteristics of each color. In September 1965, Stanley replaced "The Mad Chemist" as primary acid supplier to Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, greatly expanding the drug's popularity. Stanley was featured (most prominantly his freak-out at the Muir Beach Acid Test) in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, a book detailing the history of Kesey and the Merry Pranksters by Tom Wolfe.
Stanley met the members of the Grateful Dead in 1966, and began working with them (and financing them) as a sound man. Along with Bob Thomas, Stanley designed the "Lightning Bolt Skull Logo," often referred to by fans as a "Steal Your Face" or SYF (the name of the 1976 Grateful Dead album featuring only the lightning bolt skull on the cover, although the symbol predates the namesake album by eight years). During this time he made numerous live recordings of the Dead and other leading San Francisco acts, including Jefferson Airplane, Old and In The Way, and Janis Joplin. He also provided LSD to The Beatles for their Magical Mystery Tour, and manufactured "purple haze" acid, for which Jimi Hendrix named his famous song.
On October 6, 1966, LSD became illegal in California. Soon after, the mafia became involved in LSD production, and Stanley began manufacturing STP as well as LSD. In late 1967 his new lab was raided by police; he was found in possession of a huge quantity of illegal drugs. He was found guilty and sentenced to three years in prison. (A newspaper headline mis-identifying Owsley as an "LSD Millionaire" following his arrest inspired the Grateful Dead song "Alice D. Millionaire.") The same year, Owsley 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. In addition to cofounding the ground- breaking music company Alembic, he designed the "Wall of Sound"[1] for the Grateful Dead, ushering in today's era of amplified live music. He now lives in Queensland, Australia where he manufactures jewelry.
[edit] Diet
Owsley firmly believes that the natural human diet is a totally carnivorous one, and that all vegetables are toxic. He has eaten nothing but meat, eggs and cheese since 1959, and claims that his body has not aged as much as the bodies of those who eat a diet considered to be more normal. He is convinced that insulin, released by the pancreas when carbohydrates are ingested, is the cause of much damage to human tissue and that both forms of Diabetes Mellitus are caused by the ingestion of carbohydrates.
[edit] Musical references
The title of the Jefferson Airplane song "Bear Melt," from their 1968 live album Bless Its Pointed Little Head, is a reference to Owsley's nickname "Bear". Paul Kantner also refers to Owsley by name on the album.
The Jefferson Airplane song "Mexico," which was released as a single in 1970, opens with the lyric, "Owsley and Charlie, twins of the trade, come to the poet's room."
The Steely Dan song "Kid Charlemagne" from their 1976 album The Royal Scam was partly inspired by Owsley.
- While the music played you worked by candlelight
- Those San Francisco nights,
- You were the best in town
- Just by chance you crossed the diamond with the pearl
- You turned it on the world
- That's when you turned the world around
- (Did you feel like Jesus?) [2]
The Frank Zappa song "Who Needs the Peace Corps?", from the Mothers of Invention' 1968 album We're Only in It for the Money, satirised the hippie scene and features the opening verse:
- What's there to live for?
- Who needs the peace corps?
- Think I'll just DROP OUT
- I'll go to Frisco
- Buy a wig & sleep
- On Owsley's floor [3]
The Jimi Hendrix cover version of the Beatles song "Day Tripper", from a 1967 BBC session first released on CD in 1987, features Jimi Hendrix clearly shouting out, "Oh Owsley, can you hear me now?" during the climactic guitar solo.
[edit] External link
[edit] References
- Martin A Lee, Bruce Shlain (March 1, 1986). Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond, Grove Press. ISBN 0802130623
- John Bassett McCleary (February 1, 2004). The Hippie Dictionary: A Cultural Encyclopedia of the 1960s and 1970s pp. 495, Ten Speed Press. ISBN 1580085474
- Tom Wolfe (August 1968). The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc.
[edit] See Also
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Stanley, Owsley |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Stanley, Augustus Owsley, III (birth name); Owsley (nickname); Bear (nickname) |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | LSD chemist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 19, 1935 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | |
| DATE OF DEATH | living |
| PLACE OF DEATH | |
