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Watch rare footage The Velvet Underground rehearsing ‘Sunday Morning’ in an apartment in 1966

Very little footage of The Velvet Underground exists from prior to the release of their seminal 1967 debut, The Velvet Underground & Nico. It goes without saying that for the years between the band’s formation and the album’s release, Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison and later Moe Tucker were deeply engrossed in a flurry of artistic maturation. However, it’s one thing to read about this gestational period to than to actually witness it.

The Velvet Underground

Check out this awesome rare footage of The Velvet Underground rehearsing Sunday Morning, the chiming, celestial opener to The Velvet Underground & Nico.

Below is one of the best pieces of footage from around this time: a video of Reed, Cale and Morrison rehearsing Sunday Morning, the chiming, celestial opener to The Velvet Underground & Nico. 

The film was shot in 1966 by filmmaker Rosalind Stevenson while the band rehearsed in her apartment. For almost thirty years it remained in obscurity, before it was debuted on a 1994 BBC program called Peel Slowly and See.

Originally a silent film, it was overlaid with the studio recording for broadcast. Nonetheless, it provides a stunning portal into the band’s early days, prior to their explosion, implosion and ascendent to divinity. Check it out below.

[via Open Culture]