Owsley Stanley: The King of LSD
From the July 2007 issue of Rolling Stone.
Amazing life. Aside from fueling a generation, he also invented the wall of sound:
After two years of planning and problem-solving, the “wall of sound” made its debut on March 23rd, 1974, at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. Forty-feet high, it was composed of 604 speakers using 26,400 watts of power supplied by 55 McIntosh 2300s. With nine independent channels, the system was so powerful that the amps only needed to be turned up to two. Because the Dead controlled everything from onstage, no one had to mix from the house. Lesh likened the experience of playing through the system to “piloting a flying saucer. Or riding your own sound wave.” He also noted that the music made during the forty-odd shows when the system was used is still “regarded by Deadheads as the pinnacle of live performance.”
