The Acid Tests were a series of parties held by author Ken Kesey primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area during the mid-1960s, centered entirely on the use of, and advocacy of, the psychedelic drugLSD, also known as "acid". LSD was not made illegal in California until October 6, 1966. The name "Acid Test" was coined by Kesey, after the term "acid test" used by gold miners in the 1850s. He began throwing parties at his farm at La Honda, California. The Merry Pranksters were central to organizing the Acid Tests, including Pranksters such as Lee Quarnstrom and Neal Cassady. Other people, such as LSD chemists Owsley Stanley and Tim Scully, were involved as well. Kesey took the parties to public places, and advertised with posters that read, "Can you pass the acid test?", and the name was later popularized in Tom Wolfe's 1968 book, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Musical performances by the Grateful Dead were commonplace, along with black lights, strobe lights, and fluorescent paint. The Acid Tests are notable for their influence on the LSD-based counterculture of the San Francisco area and subsequent transition from the beat generation to the hippie movement. The Jefferson Airplane song "A Song for All Seasons" mentions the Acid Tests.
Timeline
1965
27 November; Soquel, California -- The very first Acid Test was a party at Ken Babbs' house on 27th November 1965, although Ken Babbs recalls it as Halloween night. A flyer of the Warlocks, however, shows they played at Soquel as the Warlocks on November 27. There is no evidence this flyer is genuine, and several witnesses confirm that the Warlocks / Grateful Dead did not play at Soquel, but that they did mess around with Prankster instruments. In his book, Phil Lesh confirms that he attended: 'We were at the first Test not to play, but just to feel it out, and we hadn't brought any instruments or gear' Most likely Phil Lesh, Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia, members of the future Grateful Dead did attend this party.
co-produced the Trips Festival with Ken Kesey and Stewart Brand. It was a three-day event that, in conjunction with The Merry Pranksters, brought together the nascent hippie movement for the first time. The Trips Festival was held at the Longshoreman's Hall in San Francisco in January 1966. Counterculture sound engineer Ken Babbs is mostly credited for the sound systems he created for the Trips Festival. Prior to Babbs' creation, it was discovered that particular music usually sounded distorted when cranked to high levels because of the cement floor on the San Francisco Longshoreman's Union Hall. Babbs being a sound engineer resolved the problem. He made sound amplifiers that would not create distorted sounds when turned up to high sound levels. Organized by Stewart Brand, Ken Kesey, Owsley Stanley, Zach Stewart and others, ten thousand people attended this sold-out event, with a thousand more turned away each night. On Saturday January 22, the Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company came on stage, and 6,000 people arrived to drink punch spiked with LSD and to witness one of the first fully developed light shows of the era. Big Brother and the Holding Company was formed at the Trips Festival. In the audience was painter and jazz drummer David Getz, who soon joined the band.
