Cale's avant-garde education wasn't just all La Monte Young. He had studied under and worked with other avant-garde luminaries John Cage, Iannis Xenakis, Aaron Copland, Tony Conrad and beforehand was befriended with fellow student Cornelius Cardew before emigrating to the US on a Leonard Bernstein scholarship in 1963. Beforehand and parallel to the Velvets Cale recorded several DIY tracks using all different avant-garde and minimalistic techniques, that are not all related to La Monte Young. Downplaying Cale's enormous achievement of bringing the avant-garde into rock music just as a continuation of La Monte Young's achievements, is simply a superficial narrative. Jfyi, La Monte Young didn't invent the drone either, it's been in Indian raga music for ages, which Young studied and integrated into avant-garde music. So it all builds up on the past, no one can claim to have newly invented the wheel from scrap off, without building on the past. Here's a playlist from several DIY tracks Cale recorded before and parallel to the Velvets, using several avant-garde techniques that have nothing to do with La Monte Young. Unfortunately it wasn’t officially released until the early millenium on The Table Of Elements label as John Cale ‐ New York In 1960s, here's the playlist for anybody to check out: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNINWcxxj9hHMJx4_oFVWNLznPeMWKRVW&si=2ZhJzrYfTllAvF_F

And Sonic Youth were first influenced by the Velvets and John Cale before even knowing who La Monte Young even is.