Southern California Sojourn by Owsley "Bear" Stanley
relix.com | Mar 14th 2011
Following the tragic car accident over the weekend that claimed the life of
former Grateful Dead soundman of Owsley “Bear” Stanley (he occupied the role
from 1966-1974), we offer this piece which ran in the August 2005 issue of
Relix.
Shortly after I joined up with the Dead as soundman in February 1966, they
decided to pack up and follow Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters to Los
Angeles. They considered themselves to be the official Acid Test band, and felt
the show depended on their being there. I followed, although I was not as
convinced it was such a great idea.
We arrived in L.A, a motley group of about ten or 12 people with no place to
stay and very little money to live on. We were helped out of our critical needs
for shelter by a real estate agent one of the Pranksters knew or had met, and
settled into a large pink house in the area called the Watts, right next to a
brothel. We had nowhere else to practice, so we set up in the living room.
Needless to say, the loud and often weird music upset the hookers next door-
who felt it was driving business away- so they called the cops every time we
got going. Cops do not respond with alacrity to such calls, so we did get in a
bit of practice before a knock on the door and a uniform led to us turning down
(in our terms, down was the same as off).
The Acid Test was the first reason for us to be there, but I looked at it as a
great way for the musicians to do a lot of practice and for me to learn what it
meant to be a soundman. So practice we did, even though it caused a bit of
friction with out next-door neighbors. I wondered about the close relations
their must have had with the cops as we were always pulling up pot seedlings
from the strip of grass between the houses (their customers were in the habit
of tossing seeds out the upstairs windows while rolling joints).
Once Barbara, a friend, made us up a bath of her specialty: B Toklas’ original
recipe marijuana brownies. Unaware of what was happening, she had just gotten
out of her car and was walking up the path to the door when a cop stopped her
on one of their visits to get us to turn down the music. “What’s in the bag?”
asked the cop. Not flustered in the least, Barbara answered, “Homemade
brownies, would you like one?” The cop declined her generous offer and let her
pass. I often wondered what would have happened if he had taken her up. The
recipe used broken up, whole bud mixed up into a paste with dates, nuts, figs,
and other fruits plus a touch of rum or brandy- sort of like a fruitcake mix,
but not actually cooked. It had a distinctive taste, to say the least, and you
got well and truly stoned.
It was at a practice session in the house in Watts that I saw sound coming out
as interacting waves of color from the loudspeaker. Naturally, I had ingested
some kind of psychedelic, matters not which, because I have never repeated the
experience. It definitely taught me a huge amount about the real way sound
propagates in the air- which is nothing like the ideas still current in the
sound reproduction/reinforcement field. This happy one-off “accident” is why my
sound ideas (for instance, the Wall of Sound) are so strange and work so well-
and have never been replicated by others.
The band played several Acid Tests as well as at least two non-Prankster shows,
one at the Hollywood Trooper’s Hall and the other one at a small venue called
Danish Hall upstairs over a block of stores in L.A. We had some pretty
interesting times in L.A.- The Watts AT was as strange as they come and the
final one at the sound set on Pico Boulevard was stopped before midnight by the
owner, who was rightfully freaked out by all the magic and weirdness.
After about three months we ran totally out of money and it was well and truly
time to return home. During our “woodshedding” time in L.A., Rock Scully, our
manager had been turning down offers of gigs from the various clubs in the Bay
Area because not enough money was on offer. The prices the band worked for when
we left was only $125/night, which works out to $25 (gas money and a sandwich)
for each musician, leaving no money for the soundman or roadies. Most bands had
neither one at that stage in their career. The Dead had begun as a band only
about ten months earlier and had owned the name Grateful Dead for just four
months. Finally an offer in the princely sum of $375 came for a gig at the
Longshoreman’s Hall with several other bands, including the Oakland band
Loading Zone. Just in time, as the old saying goes, and we accepted it with
thanks.
We returned home, well practiced and confident. Things continued to improve
after that.
Owsley “Bear” Stanley served as the Grateful Dead’s soundman from 1966 to 1974.
His live recordings have been released on a number of Dick’s Picks, the box
sets So Many Roads and Golden Road, in addition to the band’s 1973 Warner Bros.
release, Bear’s Choice. He is also responsible for the design of the bands
legendary Wall of Sound sound system. His first show was 10/11/65 at the Muir
Beach Acid Test in Muir Beach, CA.
Original Page:
http://www.relix.com/features/2011/03/14/southern-california-sojourn-by-owsley-bear-stanley
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