Just a quick question, in the 'Before the Storm' section are you doing reviews of those albums or just skimming them, as I'm having problems thinking how you're approaching this.
By the way this is not me nitpicking at you like I often do, but as I think this will be one of the best and most informative journals on the forum, let's get this stuff cleared up now
BTW I think the influence of that Velvet Underground is largely focused on punk and alternative music and to be fair I've no idea why it gets on a included on pre-prog lists anyway. Also agree that it's less weird than one would expect from the way people rave over it, in fact give me the Doors any day over it and as for Nico's shocking voice...........
I agree that the US bands other than listening to for their experimental focus like Frank Zappa etc, really have nothing much to do with how the formation of prog was taking place in the UK at this time. I mean the Moody Blues, Procul Harum and Pink Floyd all sound distinctly British.