GOOD OL’ GRATEFUL DEADCAST

BONUS: Bear Drops: LA ‘66

Release Date: October 21, 2021
Hosts: Rich Mahan, Jesse Jarnow
Key Guests & Voices: Owsley Stanley (archival interviews), David Gans, Tim Scully, Don Douglas, Rosie McGee, Denise Kaufman, Ken Babs, Starfinder Stanley, Hawk

Overview:

This bonus “Bear Drops” episode delves into the Grateful Dead’s pivotal, psychedelic-soaked months in Los Angeles in early 1966, focusing on the formative influence of Owsley “Bear” Stanley—legendary sound engineer, LSD chemist, and benefactor. Laced with archival Owsley interview audio, episode highlights include Bear’s intense audiophile journey, the embryonic Dead’s rapid development, wild acid tests, and the collaborative, chaotic energy binding the band and scene together. The episode is a love letter to the period’s mythology, tech innovations, and splintered memory.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Owsley Stanley Meets the Dead and the Move to LA (04:13–10:42)

• Band Origins & Name Change: Grateful Dead's transformation from the Warlocks, spurred by the Acid Tests and Merry Pranksters.
• Bear’s First Encounter: Owsley meets the band at the Muir Beach Acid Test, is blown away, and offers his services—initially as manager, but quickly pivots to soundman.
• Bear’s Vision:
  • “These guys are going to be greater than the Beatles someday… It was almost like a revelation, like looking into the future.”
    — Owsley Stanley (05:58)
• LA Adventure: Pranksters want excitement; Bear bankrolls the Dead’s move south, pays for the house, and exerts tight control.
  • “He rented the house and he paid for everything and controlled everything.”
    — Rosie McGee (10:00)

2. Culture Clash: LA in Early 1966 & The Sonic Revolution (11:04–19:08)

• LA’s Musical Hotbed: The Dead arrive amid a vibrant scene—Rascals, Butterfield Blues Band, Brian Wilson recording Pet Sounds.
• Bear’s Audio Obsession:
  • “Bear’s extreme interest in the Grateful Dead was complemented by his extreme interest in high fidelity audio.”
    — Jesse Jarnow (15:38)
• First Hi-Fi Steps: Bear details buying enormous “Voice of the Theater” speakers for his Berkeley apartment. These soon serve as the seed for the Dead’s evolving PA.
  • “It was about the ugliest hi fi system you could possibly conceive of...but it would get loud. As it turned out, it wouldn’t get loud enough.”
    — Owsley Stanley (15:48)

3. Engineering the Dead's New Sound: Collaboration with Tim Scully (19:08–21:53)

• Early Partnership: Bear recruits electronics whiz Tim Scully to help improve the Dead’s sound. They experiment with gear and LSD—a key element in building trust.
  • “He seemed to know about electronics. I thought, hey, I need somebody. You want to do it?”
    — Bear (19:08)
  • “That trip to LA was ideal for that purpose because we took acid together at least once a week…”
    — Tim Scully (20:48)
• Contrast in LSD Culture: Pranksters versus Scully’s quieter approach; yet both merge at the Trips Festival.

4. The Watts Acid Test: Surreal Theatrics and Heavy Doses (24:05–32:22)

• The Acid Test Experience: Held Feb 12, 1966 in Watts amidst riot police and wild scenes.
  • “We had these two enormous ash cans...filled with Kool Aid. Hey, the Kool Aid on the right is the electric Kool Aid…”
    — Hugh Romney/Wavy Gravy (26:10)
  • “People would come off the dance floor...and they were just looking for something wet…Wet could be a couple hundred mics a swallow and people started to melt down.”
    — Wavy Gravy (26:47)
• Emotional Highs and Lows: “Who cares?!” incident echoes through the space—a mix of communal support, psychedelic crisis, and transformation.
  • “And that's when I passed the acid test, which you get to the very bottom of the human soul...but you reach to help somebody who is sinking worse than you are.”
    — Wavy Gravy (29:16)

5. The Pink House: Communal Living, Woodshedding, and Sound Experiments (34:07–42:08)

• Day-to-Day Life: The Dead cohabit a craftsman house in West Adams (not actually Watts); Pigpen’s penchant for wine, Bear & Scully’s electronics lab, communal meals, constant rehearsals.
• Bear’s Diet: All meat, all the time.
  • “He believed that carbohydrates were bad for humans and that we evolved to eat a meat diet primarily…”
    — Tim Scully (55:22)
• Relentless Practice:
  • “Every day the band played...that’s why they grew rapidly as a group, is because they spent a lot of time in the woodshed.”
    — Tim Scully (40:12)

6. Sonic Journals, Tape Machines, and Recording Approaches (41:55–48:10)

• Bear's "Sonic Journals": Live tape recordings to study and improve the band's sound.
  • Starfinder Stanley explains Bear’s unique stereo recording method, inspired by the Beatles, separating vocals and instruments onto different tape channels.
• Psychedelic Audio Perception:
  • “One of the acid tests...all of a sudden I was looking at sound coming out of the speakers…what’s that called? Synesthesia?...She would insist on dealing with them as though they were real. Not a hallucination…So I had to deal with it as though this was the absolute concrete, everyday reality.”
    — Owsley (43:29, 44:13)
  • This shapes Bear’s later insistence on ultra-high-fidelity, point-source PA systems.

7. Taking LSD, Building Group Consciousness, and Literary Influences (70:21–72:53)

• Acid as Team Bonding:
  • “Not every day, but quite often, maybe three times a week, we’d end up taking acid just for the hell of it. We were acid heads, so that’s what we did.”
    — Don Douglas (70:23)
• More Than Human: The group aspires to a "gestalt consciousness," inspired by Theodore Sturgeon’s sci-fi novel:
  • “There were times when we all took acid together when we had experiences of forming a gestalt consciousness. So that resonated strongly with us.”
    — Tim Scully (70:41)
• Lord of the Rings: Quest narrative resonated as the Dead saw LSD as a way to “raise consciousness…to try to save the world.”

8. Bear’s Tablet-Making Method & Near-Brush with the Law (72:38–76:49)

• Tableting Acid: Bear and Tim process the last gram of crystalline LSD into 3,600 meticulously dosed tablets.
• Close Call: Dealer Margie waves a jar of tablets at a Life magazine photo shoot, sparking instant paranoia and a hasty retreat from the Pink House.

9. Random LA Adventures: Ouija Boards, Jam Sessions, and “Almost” Encounters (80:09–84:49)

• Ouija Board Premonition: The board spells they’d “leave the stage on July 9”—the exact date of the Dead’s final show in 1995.
• Cultural Crossovers: Drop-ins with Jefferson Airplane, spontaneous jams, and brushes with Barry McGuire and Bob Dylan at the Castle.
  • “There was a group of people in the same room with Bob Dylan and some of the members of the Dead…nobody knew what to say to Dylan. They were uncomfortable in his presence.”
    — Rosie McGee (64:05)

10. Winding Down LA: Final Gigs, The End of the Acid Tests, and Return to the Bay (86:45–90:51)

• Fake Acid Test for Life Magazine: Staged for the cameras, this marks the scene’s saturation point.
  • “He set up a phony acid test in the studio…and so everybody’s in there and the strobe light’s going...But he’s there saying, all right, now, you people there, no start dancing.”
    — Ken Babs (86:45)
• Exodus: Pranksters decamp for Mexico; the Dead throw a DIY gig at Troopers Hall (“All Night Harmonica Store”) before sending Rosie and Melissa north to find new digs.
• Owsley Sells His PA: Negotiates with the band to upgrade equipment, sells off his hi-fi and prepares for future sonic innovations.
• Bear’s Phantom Sonic System: Passes into legend after Dead’s July shows in Vancouver; seeds of the Wall of Sound are planted.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Bear’s Revelation:

  • “I thought the sound of Garcia’s guitar was like the claws of a tiger…dangerously scary…I thought to myself, one of these days, these guys are going to be greater than the Beatles someday.”
    — Owsley Stanley (05:58)

• The Communal Living Dynamic:

  • “The band all lived together for a couple of years, and I think it has a lot to do with how they became a cohesive group as people and as musicians.”
    — Rosie McGee (48:14)

• The Watts Acid Test, Wavy Gravy’s Test:

  • “You get to the very bottom of the human soul…But you reach to help somebody who is sinking worse than you are. That’s when everybody gets high. And you don’t even need LSD to do that.”
    — Wavy Gravy (29:16)

• Bear’s Synesthesia:

  • “I actually saw sound coming out of the…the speakers…And so when I got to this point in the acid test, when I saw sound coming out…I was totally programmed to accept whatever I saw as being real. More real, perhaps, than my everyday life…”
    — Owsley (43:29–44:55)

• The Ouija Board Prophecy:

  • “The one thing that I remembered about that was that they were going to leave the stage on July 9…later on in the mid-'90s, in fact, their last concert was July 9th.”
    — Don Douglas (80:09)

• Bear and Pigpen’s Odd Couple Kinship:

  • “Pigpen favored alcohol...Bear loved acid...but they loved each other. The music from that era has resonance for me in part because that's the Grateful Dead that captured Bear's attention.”
    — Starfinder Stanley (52:02)

Timestamps of Key Segments

• Bear’s Epiphany About the Dead: 05:25–07:48
• Why Move to LA; Arrival: 08:22–10:42
• Watts Acid Test: 25:34–32:22
• Bear’s First Hi-Fi and Early Sound Reinforcement: 15:48–17:36
• Communal Living at the Pink House: 34:07–36:22
• Bear’s Approach to Recording & Synesthesia: 43:29–48:10
• Making the Blue LSD Tablets: 72:38–76:49
• Ouija Board and July 9th Prophecy: 80:09–81:29
• All Night Harmonica Store / Final LA Gigs: 69:23–70:21, 88:47–90:38

Tone & Feel

With a mix of reverence, playful irreverence, and firsthand reverie, the episode conjures a tight-knit, visionary community radically reshaping music, technology, and culture in real-time, anchored by Bear’s eccentric genius and the Dead’s willingness to experiment on all fronts. The guests’ anecdotes and archival tape preserve a “you-had-to-be-there” spirit, letting listeners taste the technicolor chaos and creative magic.

For anyone wanting to understand the roots of the Dead’s sonic innovations, counterculture mythmaking, and the alchemy between talent, chemistry, and community—this episode is essential listening.