In San Jose California we had The Chocolate Watchband (three albums on Tower Records, home of early Pink Floyd), Stained Glass (two albums on Capitol), People (two on Capitol), The Syndicate Of Sound (one album on Bell Records), The Count Five (one album), and Fritz (the mid-late 60’s garage band whose members included Stevie Nicks & Lindsey Buckingham. Do a search to find the pic of them on stage at Mother Butler High School, Stevie in a prom dress ;-) . And then in the 70’s of course The Doobie Brothers. Before getting a deal with Warner Brothers Records, they were the house band at a biker bar up in the Santa Cruz mountains.
At one point in time Chuck Berry was living in town, as was acid-casualty Skip Spence (Moby Grape, drummer on the first Jefferson Airplane album), whom after being released from Agnew Mental Facility could be seen wandering the streets of downtown San Jose, bumming cigarettes and loose change. R.I.P. and shine on, you crazy diamond.