It was an amazing night at Hunchback Gallery on Friday, the one-year mark of the Eureka Street ICE raid that put a mother in various federal detention centers for months, ripping a family apart in the process, as well as two other mothers through nine months of court proceedings on the sort of b******t charges that police departments get to file against anyone perceived to have slighted them. Here’s a pic of the crowd at Hunchback Gallery that Chris took.

This two hour recording has been left unedited for content (while heavily edited for sound quality, due to the band practicing on the floor below us, hence the delay in getting it up) because we feel it’s worth it to have the entire thing preserved. It is, as Etel put it in a text shortly after we all packed up and left, the first oral history of this event—one I feel will be looked back on as one of the most significant hinge points in the city’s history.

Through the course of the show, we move loosely from past to present, starting with a pre-written local political context, up to what people can and should be doing now, as the deportation machine becomes more streamlined, more efficient, more eerily quiet.

From ticket sales, we raised $450 for LUCE’s direct support fund in Worcester, which has a specific name that is escaping me right now, but can be found here if you’d like to make a direct donation yourself. The “big check” discussed in the episode is currently being commissioned! Updates to come. Thank you to everyone who purchased a ticket, especially those who bought the extra generous tier, which ended up being almost half.

For a first live show, it went better than we could have hoped. That’s not to say it went perfect and the flubs and hiccups are left in the tape so that the next time we do a live show, you can marvel at how much better we got at it.

Have an idea for the next Outdoor Cats event? Drop it in the comments.

And please consider a paid subscription. Outdoor Cats episodes getting put up on a weekly basis is one thing, but this live event? There is no conceivable way I could have booked this event, promoted it, ripped apart my recording desk, schlepped it all to an art gallery, rebuilt it for the purposes of recording and a live mix, ran sound for the event, ran the event, did the podcast, packed up my recording desk, brought it home, rebuilt it, mixed and mastered the recording of the event, which took several days in this case, then wrote this post… there’s no conceivable way any of that happens if this newsletter does not support at least one full time position. So, given our only source of revenue is reader contributions, the question becomes whether you, the reader and/or listener, appreciate having this outlet in your city? Is that appreciation worth the equivalent of a beer a month to you?

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Something to think about! I can promise you I’ll keep doing this with gusto so long as I’m able. The event was a ton of work, but it was soul restoring in a way I didn’t know how much I needed. I know I’m not the only one.

If you feel the same, share this episode far and wide! That helps too!

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Intro music by Bill Shaner 5.10.26

Outro music: Orgone “Lay Your Life Down”

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