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Yada Yada Yada.......

The Grateful Dead were way better than any of those bands IMO.  As
professional and "tight" (IOW's overproduced and slick) as those LA bands
were,  the Dead, Big Brother, QMS, and the Airplane had a SOUND that those
LA bands didn't share. That's why it was called the San Francisco SOUND.
Ralph Gleason even wrote a book about it.

This writer is a nitwit.

CSNY? Pfffft
The Turtles? (Actually I dug them when they were with Zappa and The Mothers)
The Doors? The most overated band in history.
Buffalo Springfield was great, but they lasted how long? Two years?
The Mama's and the Papa's? Same freaking deal,. two or three years isn't
much of a career.

The San Francisco bands were better and cooler. Listen to Cippolina, Garcia
and Jorma's tone back in 67. They all sound pretty similar, in the same way
that the Beatle's and their contemporaries from Liverpool shared a sound

San Francisco's sound was organic. It still feels natural, whereas while I
like the music of many of those LA bands, it doesn't seem as natural or
authentic to me. It's too slick

YMMV,.

Scot