This article will explore the background to the establishment of the Downtown avant-garde art and music scene in New York, including a survey of the role of the experimental composer in American music. It will investigate cultural interactions and influences between some of the main players in the early Downtown scene, focusing in particular on the Theatre of Eternal Music (TEM), the ensemble formed in the 1960s by New York-based “founding-father” Minimalist La Monte Young. It will examine some of the cross-pollination which occurred between the group and the environment in which it developed and will briefly survey the manner in which historical accounts have attributed varying degrees of credit to members of the group, along with a brief account of the current dispute between Young on the one hand and Tony Conrad and John Cale on the other.