C'mon, Jefferson Airplane, Melanie (who I have a secret and inexplicable passion for) and the Dead where only a sideshow! How can you discount: Sly and the Family Stone? Hendrix? CCR? The Band? Johnny Winter? Paul Butterfield? Ten Years After? The Who? Richie Havens? They are so much greater than the mindless masturbation that takes up so many minutes of the White Album--Sharon Tate be damned or not.
Bravo! Finally a voice for musical taste. I've got the woodstock CD's at work. Listen to them while people think I'm solving dynamic optimization problems. Most of it holds up pretty well. Country Joe and Airplane are a little quaint ("rockin' soul music!"), and Sly is total history, but the rest still work. Then again, I listen to Frank Sinatra.
Dead vs. VU? It is to laugh. There's a reason they were 'underground.' nobody was interested in them. Couldn't sell any records. If somebody was playing "Take a Walk on the Wild Side" on the sidewalk, I wouldn't even stop to listen.
mbs