New Galaxie 500 live video unearthed

A newly unearthed video of Galaxie 500 playing a live set at The Middle East in Cambridge, MA in 1990 has just been shared on YouTube by Damon & Naomi.

Galaxie 500 at The Middle East

The performance has Damon playing a second guitar rather than drums and is pretty special!

Head over to YouTube for this treat

At a recent Damon & Naomi show at Tubby’s in Kingston, NY, writer Mimi Lipson showed up with a gift of an old VHS tape labeled, “GALAXY [sic] 500 w/o DRUMS…ACOUSTIC.” It had been shot and edited by Mimi’s late friend Tucker Stilley, back when they both lived in Boston and were denizens of the local rock clubs. The tape was worse for wear after all the years, not always tracking, but Mimi had managed to get it to play enough to identify it as a set from the Middle East (at the time there was only an “upstairs”), with impresario Billy Ruane hosting (as he nearly always did), and Tucker filming (as he sometimes did). Mimi also identified the door person for us — Kerry Buchman — who makes a cameo. The tape is a time capsule of the late 80s/early 90s scene at the Middle East: the attitudes in the crowd (and on stage!), the banter, the smoking, the cookies…

I had no memory of playing this local show without a drum kit, something we only did occasionally on tour for in-stores, and once for MTV Europe when they couldn’t accommodate all our equipment. Here, close at home, I brought my old electric and acoustic guitars that I used to write on, and a doumbek. But as I listened to the tracklist it made sense: we must have been in the midst of writing and rehearsing songs for This Is Our Music, working out arrangements. Why we took the show — to test the songs with an audience? as a favor to Billy? to make the scene? a little extra cash? — I no longer know.

Thank you Mimi for sharing this with us! And thank you Eclipse Video in Cambridge for managing to digitize the fragile tape (same place we took the Tugboat video to make dupes in 1988).

Damon Krukowski - YouTube