In this episode Mike Stax talks to writer and Velvet Undergound expert Phil Milstein about Lou Reed’s early days as a songwriter for a budget record label, and the unlikely series of events that led to him first meeting John Cale – a classical/avant-garde musician from Wales who’d come to America to study composition on a Leonard Bernstein scholarship – and forming an alliance that would have an incalculable impact on the face of modern music.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices