You're record collection was probably greatly influenced by this guy.

Steely Dan

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This happened back in March but I just learned of it today. I don't praise him nor do I judge him harshly. He's just an interesting story and the subject of Steely Dan's song "Kid Charlemagne". "Kid Charlemagne" is looking at Owsley's life using sardonic lyrics. The song is from the 1976 album "The Royal Scam" and tells his story from his stardom amongst the rock and roll elite to his fall from grace.

IIRC, Mick Fleetwood mentions in his autobiography that Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac was in NYC and called Owsley and he was out the next day from the west coast with the "stuff" they wanted.

While you can look at Owsley's life and say he was nothing more than an acid peddler you have to realize that he did care about what went into his stuff. He never produced "Brown Acid" (poorly manufactured acid that causes permanent damage to the brain). Mick Fleetwood claims Peter Green took some brown acid in Germany from amateur acid manufacturers and thus ruined his mind and career.

Anyhoo, he's an interesting and tragic story that I thought I'd post about when I read that he had died. I'm pretty sure a lot of people here have at least one album his "product" helped influence. JMO

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/us/15stanley.html

Owsley Stanley, Artisan of Acid, Is Dead at 76
By MARGALIT FOX
Published: March 14, 2011

Owsley Stanley, the prodigiously gifted applied chemist to the stars, who made LSD in quantity for the Grateful Dead, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Ken Kesey and other avatars of the psychedelic ’60s, died on Sunday in a car accident in Australia....

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylr2D4Pwn58"]Steely Dan - Kid Charlemagne (Live) - YouTube[/ame]

KID CHARLEMAGNE

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
Did you realize
That you were a champion in their eyes

On the hill the stuff was laced with kerosene
But yours was kitchen clean
Everyone stopped to stare at your technicolor motor home
Every A-Frame had your number on the wall
You must have had it all
You'd go to L.A. on a dare
And you'd go it alone
Could you live forever
Could you see the day
Could you feel your whole world fall apart and fade away

CHORUS:
Get along, get along Kid Charlemagne
Get along Kid Charlemagne

Now your patrons have all left you in the red
Your low rent friends are dead
This life can be very strange
All those dayglow freaks who used to paint the face
They've joined the human race
Some things will never change
Son you were mistaken
You are obsolete
Look at all the white men on the street

CHORUS

Clean this mess up else we'll all end up in jail
Those test tubes and the scale
Just get them all out of here
Is there gas in the car
Yes, there's gas in the car
I think the people down the hall
Know who you are

Careful what you carry
'Cause the man is wise
You are still an outlaw in their eyes

CHORUS


Written by Donald Fagen/Walter Becker
 
This is the bus Ken Kesey and The Merry Prankster's used;

_tken%20kesey4.jpg


Hence the "technicolor motorhome"
 
"That the brown acid that is circulating around us isn't too good" Chip Monk.
 
Heh, he attributed his throat cancer to the broccoli his mother forced on him as a child, lol. He touted the carnivorous diet.

Interesting article, Steely, thanks! (oh, and for the other Steely, too!)
 
Mick Fleetwood claims Peter Green took some brown acid in Germany from amateur acid manufacturers and thus ruined his mind and career.
A better-known story (and source for the song title below) is that Green took LSD called "green Manalishi," and subsequently encountered rough sailing along the way, shall we say. The song is great, and greatly disturbing, one of the last recorded before Peter Green dropped from sight for several years:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h6J2W17V9A"]Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac - The Green Manalishi (With The Two Pronged Crown) - YouTube[/ame]
 
Grateful Dead's early Owsley song - Owsley had been referred to in the papers as a "LSD millionaire":
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQybXHI2W-A&feature=player_embedded#"]Alice D. Millionaire - Grateful Dead - YouTube[/ame]
 
OT to the subject of the thread but a comment on one of the vid's posted here---I always had a crush (non romantic-non sexual) on Donald Fagen's (and Becker too but mostly Fagen because I also appreciate his vocal delivery) artistry with lyric.
 
A better-known story (and source for the song title below) is that Green took LSD called "green Manalishi," and subsequently encountered rough sailing along the way, shall we say. The song is great, and greatly disturbing, one of the last recorded before Peter Green dropped from sight for many years:
Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac - The Green Manalishi (With The Two Pronged Crown) - YouTube

I'd double check myself but I lent Mick Fleetwood's autobiography to my brother. As I recall it, Fleetwood Mac played a gig in Germany and these weird hippie type cult people invited them to a party after the show and Mick and the other guys got a really bad vibe from them and declined. They thought Peter had gotten a bad vibe too, but when they couldn't find him Mick had to go to the hippie cult and PG was there and acting very strangely and did so for a long time after. Mick suspects that PG was given some of their home made acid. I think this happened after "Green Manalishi" was written but I could be wrong.

I call what PG had as Syd Barrett's disease. Too much acid and a full distrust of the music industry. I think that if PG and SB were allowed to just make music and not deal with anyone from record companies they'd have recorded a lot more stuff. I also recall Mick putting his butt on the line for PG and negotiating a five record deal for him. However, literally, just before signing it he chickened out. He didn't want to make a long term commitment like that.

Another interesting story from that book is off topic but interesting. After PG left the band FWM was touring America. On a flight to LA Jeremy Spencer, another guitarist in the band, started freaking out a little. He told Mick they shouldn't go to LA because something bad was gonna happen.

Mick calmed him down enough to get him to agree to play the show. The morning of the show JS left the hotel to go to a book store and didn't return. Mick went out to track him down so he'd make the show and when he got to the bookstore he found out JS had left with someone from a cult. When Mick went to the cult they refused to let him see Jeremy. They did eventually let JS come out but he was behind a counter and they wouldn't let Mick talk to him alone. He said he was happy and wanted to stay with the cult and he did. They had to cancel that show and wired PG to see if he'd fill in until the show was done. Fortunately he came over right away and helped out.

At the time Mick wrote his autobiography around 1980ish Spencer was still with the cult as far as Mick knew.
 
Syd Barrett's "The Madcap Laughs" and Skip Spence's "Oar" are often cited as the two quintessential albums
exemplifying the term "acid casualty":

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k5WQnfCjmk"]Syd Barrett - Octopus - YouTube[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t2ZufBbnD8"]Alexander "Skip" Spence - Little Hands (from "Oar") - YouTube[/ame]
 
OT to the subject of the thread but a comment on one of the vid's posted here---I always had a crush (non romantic-non sexual) on Donald Fagen's (and Becker too but mostly Fagen because I also appreciate his vocal delivery) artistry with lyric.

You :rocker:
 
Steely! Great thread again! I love it that reminice about my life so far through the great music I love. O and thanks for the trip down memory lane.heh
 
I'd double check myself but I lent Mick Fleetwood's autobiography to my brother. As I recall it, Fleetwood Mac played a gig in Germany and these weird hippie type cult people invited them to a party after the show and Mick and the other guys got a really bad vibe from them and declined. They thought Peter had gotten a bad vibe too, but when they couldn't find him Mick had to go to the hippie cult and PG was there and acting very strangely and did so for a long time after. Mick suspects that PG was given some of their home made acid. I think this happened after "Green Manalishi" was written but I could be wrong.

I call what PG had as Syd Barrett's disease. Too much acid and a full distrust of the music industry. I think that if PG and SB were allowed to just make music and not deal with anyone from record companies they'd have recorded a lot more stuff. I also recall Mick putting his butt on the line for PG and negotiating a five record deal for him. However, literally, just before signing it he chickened out. He didn't want to make a long term commitment like that.

Another interesting story from that book is off topic but interesting. After PG left the band FWM was touring America. On a flight to LA Jeremy Spencer, another guitarist in the band, started freaking out a little. He told Mick they shouldn't go to LA because something bad was gonna happen.

Mick calmed him down enough to get him to agree to play the show. The morning of the show JS left the hotel to go to a book store and didn't return. Mick went out to track him down so he'd make the show and when he got to the bookstore he found out JS had left with someone from a cult. When Mick went to the cult they refused to let him see Jeremy. They did eventually let JS come out but he was behind a counter and they wouldn't let Mick talk to him alone. He said he was happy and wanted to stay with the cult and he did. They had to cancel that show and wired PG to see if he'd fill in until the show was done. Fortunately he came over right away and helped out.

At the time Mick wrote his autobiography around 1980ish Spencer was still with the cult as far as Mick knew.

[bbm]

they had him brainwashed within hours? :waitasec: maybe their acid was better lol
 
this was one very interesting guy ... too many snippets to quote ... well worth reading the NY Times link that Steely quoted

also, there is a link there to this article from 2007:

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/owsley-stanley-the-king-of-lsd-20110314

where there is even more good reading

thanks Steely!

Thank you!

From the article;

Although people speculated for years about how Owsley managed to conceal his stash, no one ever figured it out. He says his method was simple. He kept the LSD in an inexpensive footlocker that traveled constantly on Greyhound buses between Oakland, San Jose and San Francisco. "I could leave it for up to thirty days in the bus station and I would go to it wherever it was, take out whatever I needed, take it back in, and send it to myself in the next city. It was always in a safe place, and nobody had a clue, because I never told anyone I did that."...

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/owsley-stanley-the-king-of-lsd-20110314#ixzz1ctL1C563

That dude was smart as hell but like so many people with genius IQ's he was a semi-social misfit.
 
OT although not akin to Kat.

Who used to paint their face and joined the human race?

I got a bet going on this sooooooooooooooooooo........................



TIA

Edit to say I know what these lyrics say. I believe they are correct. Has anyone seen other lyrics? Maybe the person I have the bet with did too much acid?
 
Thanks for this thread today Steely. My kids know Steely Dan because I've played it over the years for them when they were little.

Today I treated them to some Lou Reed (which they know) and better yet some Tom Waits (because now they are old enough to start grasping his lyrics and appreciate them for the poetry they are).

So thanks for the nudge to continue to broaden my kids music experiences. :)
 
OT although not akin to Kat.

Who used to paint their face and joined the human race?

I got a bet going on this sooooooooooooooooooo........................



TIA

Edit to say I know what these lyrics say. I believe they are correct. Has anyone seen other lyrics? Maybe the person I have the bet with did too much acid?

I believe the "Dayglow Freaks" were Ken Kesey's merry pranksters.
 
OT although not akin to Kat.

Who used to paint their face and joined the human race?

I got a bet going on this sooooooooooooooooooo........................



TIA

Edit to say I know what these lyrics say. I believe they are correct. Has anyone seen other lyrics? Maybe the person I have the bet with did too much acid?

Definition of day glo

1. The bus in which Ken Kesey and his Merry Band of Pranksters rode across America in, in the 60's. It was covered in day-glo paint, and they pranksters would do LSD in it. It is talked about in Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aide Acid Test.
Ken Kesey's Bus Further was covered in day-glo. You were either on the bus, or off it.


If you want an official version of the lyrics look here; http://www.steelydan.com/lyrroyalscam.html#track1

That's Steely Dan's official website and the place I pasted the lyrics from.
 

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