The Hudson Falcons are:
Mark- Vocals, Guitar
Uncle Chris -guitar
Craighton- Bass
Ben - Drums
I’d like to thank the Falcons for all of their time and help. Be sure to check them out next time they roll through your town, and make sure your on time because their opening bands are always top notch.
Mark- This is the second show we had to cancel our first three b/c the vehicle wasn’t ready to go and stuff. The last couple of tours have been real good to us though so hopefully this one will continue in that tradition.
BB- You tour more than any other band, and play some pretty obscure towns, why?
There is a lot of towns that… Most bands when their own tour will come through Chicago or New York you know bigger cities, especially Chicago we love Chicago its our favorite big city in the country, but there is a lot of these smaller towns that bands don’t go to and these are the kids that need it, they don’t have shows goin’ on every other day or something and a lot, a bunch of working class towns and working class people that’s what its about. They shouldn’t get Rock and Roll Bands through town because they’re not lucky enough or just ironically don’t happen to live in a city? That ain’t cool. And if we got to go out of our way to do it that’s fine and if there are bands that don’t do that and don’t think that’s important, they should go fuck themselves. Because if there is one person one kid who comes and you can affect their life and help 'em get through the day and they can come and just enjoy and have good night out then you should do it. You know?
BB- Any crazy tour stories you want to share?
UC- I can’t remember any actually. (To Ben or Craighton I can’t remember) Hey remember that time you stuck your arm up that elephants ass? And squeezed his ass muscles and started walkin down the street and you were just dangling from his ass? That wasn’t him though, That was Richard Prior.
Craighton - This one time we caught the GC5 doing an elephant walk remember that?
UC - What were the GC5 doing?
Craighton – The Elephant Walk.
UC – The Elephant Walk? I don’t know what the Elephant walk is, but they were doin it.
BB- I do if you want I can explain it.
Mark- We don’t have any good tour stories, I think you’ve pretty much surmised that.
UC – We’ll make sure we do this tour. I rubbed my ass on Graceland and Sun Studios does that count?
BB- Nah that’s cool.
Mark- These guys can put ‘em away (to Ben and Craigton.).
UC- We are a boring band. They get lots of blowjobs I don’t know if you want to put that in your interview though.
BB- No that’s great, it’s all about honesty.
UC - I just wished they’d stop asking me for them though.
BB- What do you do when you’re not on tour?
UC- Work.
BB- I mean what kind of jobs?
UC (to Mark). You go first because mines not interesting.
Mark – I’m a union organizer with the American Federation of Teachers.
BB- I’ve got a question about that later.
Mark- We can get back to that now or?
BB- Why the AFT versus the NEA?
Mark - I actually got in a shitload of trouble on this question the other day go by what everyone else does.
Ben- Anything I can find any shit job I can work.
UC- I’m a photographer.
Mark- And he’s also got a box rental company that he trying to get rolling…
BB- Mark- You talk about working class in most of your songs and at the shows how do you- define working class?
Mark- Anyone who got a… I mean we can go a couple different ways… a very scholastic way would be, someone who doesn’t own or have any control over the means of production and people who don’t control other peoples labor powers. Its not an income thing there’s people who are working class and actually make really good money, good for them, I say someone like a teacher, or something like that. Then there’s also some office manager who makes $20,000.00 a year and he’s just tryin to suck dick to get up in the company and treats all the workers like shit. That ain’t working class that’s… that person at that point is just pretty much an asshole. Anyone who works for what they get and doesn’t fuck other people it can be a variety of things. Especially, working class is thought of/ used as factory put that’s not what it is about, there’s a lot of clerical, obviously a lot of farming and its different in all different fields especially now with the booming in the service sector that’s happened in the last thirty years. That’s such a working class thing and these people aren’t always accepted by the rest of society. It’s a common thing, its definitely an underclass of society that’s not given the respect, its not being put in a position to effect much change in the broader scope of the people who work would like. And that didn’t make any sense at all that was just a bunch of words all thrown together, but it’s the people who make everything in this country go and despite all the work that we all do we don’t get compensated monetarily or more importantly in respect.
BB- The past couple of years you’ve done enough splits to have more full lengths, why do all the splits?
UC- We love the bands, they’re our friends, its just good exposure to be on something with somebody else that someone might not know you, their fans might like us vise versa, if not you know fuck ‘em, but I think its double the exposure and its fun its cool.
Mark- The only band that we did a split with that we don’t know at all is what the Trends right? Off that Split (American Fight Club on Outsider). I was a little a taken aback because I don’t know those guys. We try to do something where its all like… the Family kind of bands. Like tonight is a perfect example this is the Rock and Roll Costa Nostra. The Falcons, The GC5, Callaghan, and the Day Care Swindlers were all brothers in one-way or another. And we like to do that with whatever bands we have a lot in common with, not necessarily musically, but ideally just how we go about doing things. The one that was strange for us was Blood for Blood, Ken Casey from Dropkicks its on his label, he said, “Oh yeah I’m gonna put you on with Blood for Blood.” I said, “Kenny they’re a Hardcore band we’re a Rock and Roll band.” He says “Don’t worry it’s a good mix. Don’t worry about.” I went to see them and I was never a hardcore fan but these guys kicked ass and there is a certain commonality that… I know there is lots of people in Chicago that aren’t too happy with Blood for Blood, but that’s another story altogether. But we try to keep them family together and if other bands help us out and we can help other bands out its just nice to have releases out. You know again Chris was saying their fans might dig us and our fans might them.
BB- Like the Ska/punk package tours?
(Laughter)
Mark- Yeah exactly that makes a lot of sense. Even the bands tonight the Swindlers don’t sound anything like us, and us and the GC5 we have a lot of similarities. And Callaghan, Callaghan and GC5 don’t have many, but you know we’re all in this together and we’re all focused all trying to do things the right way, we’re all just trying to be legit and you know. I haven’t gotten much sleep in the past five days so I’m extra babbly, and I apologize.
BB- Don’t sweat it. A lot of people have been complaining about GMM lately what kind of experience have you had with them and what kind of support have you received for the new record?
Mark- Mark Noah, the way he runs his label, he runs it as a non-profit organization and there is no label that I know of at all that gives their bands such great rates on their CDs, the bands got to buy them from the label I don’t know if you know that or not. GMM is by far the cheapest that’s out there. And whenever we need the CDs we call, now actually we call victory and we just get the CD, and that helps a lot. There are a lot of bands who go out there and they think the record company is going to do everything, well fuck that. WE want to do things ourselves and we want the record company’s support, we want them to get our back, but we do all our stuff, our booking, merchandise that kind of crap. B/c our take on it is this is very serious we changed our whole lives around to do this if anyone’s gonna fuck it up its gonna be one of us. We’re not gonna just allow people to just do everything for us, screw that. GMM gets us our CDS pretty cheap and we don’t ask a whole lot of them.
BB- Ben and Craighton You used to play w/BKB what do you think of their new stuff?
Ben and Craighton - It’s Fuckin great.
UC -Any elaborations on that?
Ben and Craighton – No.
BB- Can you explain the concept of the Rock and Roll Costa Nostra, I know you just touched on this, but Tom (Callaghan) wanted me to ask.
Mark- That’s funny as shit. There’s a definite familial bond between the bands, There’s a certain brother/sisterhood. That we have each other’s back, you know? You heart a lot in the scene, oh there like brothers to me. In all honesty these bands that make up the Costa Nostra, its an amazing thing some of these people I’ve only know two or three years, but I feel like I’ve known ‘em all of my life. They’re some of my, honestly best friends and we got each other’s back. And its always important for us just to do things the right way, and that’s one of the things we have in common as far as the approach to rock and roll and putin it on the line and takin it seriously and still havin a great time with it, but there is this certain bond that some bands have and some bands don’t but this goes real deep with all of us. We really get each other’s back. I mean if one of us gets helped all of us are getting helped at once, if you fuck over one of us its not necessarily good thing on any behalf. If some one fucks over the DC Swindlers or the GC5 or Callaghan anything, we’ll make sure that we don’t work with those people and we let other people know that there is a problem and visa versa. We got to watch each others backs, we are all a bunch of working class shits and we got each other and we got music and in The Costa Nostra that’s what its all about, is really relying on each other. It goes both ways we’re not afraid to ask each other for a favor and visa versa. And that’s what’s important.
BB- That’s a really cool attitude.
UC – Actually it was all my idea though. Mark coped it off me.
BB- We’ll keep that on the down low though. What kind of turnouts do you get at shows, In DeKalb you played for like six people at fireside you played for a hundred and then I saw you at Sputniks and there were three of us there?
UC- It’s pretty much the same
Mark - When people ask us that and we say anywhere between 2 and 300 people, we’re not lying. It really depends on the night. There was a show we did with the GC5 last summer the only time we played North Dakota one person payed to get in that was it,
UC and I think they did it as a favor to someone.
Mark – and then we have towns like this or anywhere we go down in Texas, we all have a great time down there, or Conway Arkansas, or wherever its real hit or miss. We’ll hit South ##### and get like five people and then we’ll play you know Rocket City South Dakota be 100 kids things are getting better and we’re just gonna keep playing I mean if people don’t like what we’re doing fine don’t come, fuck ‘em I don’t give a shit.
UC- were not changing anything.
Mark – Were not changing Well if we do this we can get more fans Fuck that we play rock and roll and we do it from the heart if you don’t like it fuck you.
UC- Except for the light show and the make up.
Mark- Yes
BB- Uncle Chris how was Amsterdam?
UC- It was fuckin amazing. You’re very lucky, I don’t know if lucky is the right word for it, I’m lucky to be back, but I surprised I’m on this side of the ocean.
BB- Did you do a lot of tourist shit to or?
UC – We stayed right by all the museums so we had something to tell our parents that we did there saw all the good museums. It was cool it was really nice and the people there were nice as hell really friendly people they tolerate fucked up tourists there…
Not sure who – Booty!
BB- That’s my friend and her roommate.
UC- but look at that booty that black booty, Oh my goodness.
BB- UC - In addition do you have any good rap recommendations?
UC - a lot actually, anything by Twista, Snoop Dog and Dr. Dre will always be amazing I know a lot of underground stuff that like 8 ball and bunbun and all kinds of wacky shit that I find on the Internet Its all mostly Tommy Callaghan’s fault and Pete from the GC5. Anything that’s got I good beat to it I dig.
BB- Hudson Falcons’ sound has been described as everything from Rock and Roll to Oi! How do you describe it?
Mark- Rock and Roll, Punk and Roll for the working class is what we put on everything we put out. Just a rock and Roll band I’m very happy that especially the punk scene has been very supportive of us but we play…
UC- I’m sorry but your roommate’s ass is just…
BB- No not my roommate my friend’s actually another friends girlfriend.
UC Just looking its such a nice I just want to bite that ass.
Mark – Go Richard Nixon on that ass. (strikes an eerily close Nixon pose).
BB- Where can I find a girl who looks like Betty Paige and Fucks like Tracy lords.
Mark- Fuck, I don’t know.
UC- Probably NYC, Chicago or Yeah.
Mark- South Texas has some very nice females also
BB- How’d you hook up with Rick Barton, formerly of DKM, to write Fallen Heroes?
Mark – Rick called me one day and he said that there was a song that he was working on, that what I think was the Dropkicks were kinda working on it and they weren’t happy with they way it was coming out or something. So Rick was really happy with these lyrics so he just gave to us he asked me to write music for it. And we did it and we’re pretty happy with what we got and he likes it and that’s pretty much it, it was weird because he gave me the lyrics. They played a St. Paddy’s day show in Jersey and that hey it’s like them out here thousands of people, I was just hanging out backstage and he just like here. I was like this is weird Rick Barton is givin me lyrics he wrote, then we put the music to it.
BB- Can you explain why you get so many shows in Chicago while other bands in the same vein can’t or won’t?
Mark- Callaghan, right off the bat from day one we first played with them in august of 99 we were on the road out for a week, we hooked up with them they said whenever you want to come back call, we did we came out and played thanksgiving weekend out here, and then its been a constant thing. I mean, its family it’s anything we need their there for and visa versa. You guys treat us great out here there’s no big city that treats us better than Chicago. Without a doubt bar none there’s not a close fuckin second. Its such a working class ideal here there’s no fuckin pretense as in some of these other fuckin cities. That are big or think there big, cough LA, don’t get me wrong there’s a shitload of good people out there but the scene itself if you don’t have the right hair or the right tattoos don’t suck the right dick they don’t like you as much I guess we just don’t suck the right dick, I don’t know. Chicago is just a bunch of working class motherfuckers and we just hit it off. I love this city even fuck music; I love this city it cool. Its working class America Its still a Union city and there’s not to many of those left.
BB- Mark you are an organizer for an educators union in Jersey which union and why?
Mark – I got hooked up with the AFT when I was going to a small liberal arts college in Jersey, college professors were going to go on strike and as a student I’ve been involved with labor for a while, so let me volunteer to help. The volunteering worked its way into working part time for the local, that turned itself into an internship with the national AFT and that’s how I got my job. They treat me good. I obviously can’t do it full time because I’m out on the road eight months out of the year, but when I’m home I get put on assignments and it works pretty good like that. That’s how I got hooked up with the AFT I like the ideal of the AFT quite a bit more than that of the NEA I’ve had personally, and this is no knock against the NEA in general, but I’ve had some very difficult problems with them as far as when we’re going after the local or something like that. AFT is an AFL-CIO union teachers are professionals, but they are workers and that is a very important concept. Where if you think of yourself as above workers you’re really cutting the legs out from what we’re all trying to do here. I know there has been campaigns were the NEA and AFT have gone against each other and some of the literature that the NEA has put out was like, well if you join the AFT then you’re no better then the Teamsters you’ll be grouped together with Teamsters. Is that supposed to be insulting what’s wrong with that teamsters are a bunch of hardworking people and it’s a strong union. Why should you think that is an insult in the first place and why would you try to split workers apart? That’s what the scumbag bosses do. We can’t do that amongst each other and I have a very hard time with that ideology. I do this so I’m a better worker than someone who just drives a truck, that’s fuckin bullshit you can take that attitude and stick it up your fuckin ass. There is a lot of good people in the NEA and I don’t think that’s a wide ranging ideal that goes through the union, but my experiences with that kind of shit I’ve had some problems with.
BB- I don’t know about Jersey or that, but here you’re stuck with whatever Union you first school belongs to when you start teaching.
Mark- the NEA has gone out and broken they’re ass and gotten a lot of locals as well as the AFT. Chicago is AFT the suburbs [NEA]… The AFT has all the cities, NYC, Boston, Chicago etc.
BB- Generally Democratic areas?
Mark- That’s true but the NEA is a huge democratic party supporter. The suburbs are generally NEA but there are exceptions on both sides. I know in California the two union’s work very well together and I know there are parts in the Midwest where they work well together. Jersey nah, they don’t work well together at all. There was a vote, a referendum vote for merger for the NEA two years ago and it would have passed but the New Jersey part of the NEA said we don’t want that and that kind fucked things up, but the Union is getting along a lot better now and that’s good, I mean if it could be one Union instead of the AFT having 1.2 million members and the NEA having 2 or 2.5 million having one big union would help all the workers across the board, it will help education and more importantly it’ll help the fucking students. So that would be great. So long as you don’t undermine true trade unionism and real worker ideology don’t pit one worker against another.
BB- What’s in the pipe for the Falcons?
UC – My personal pipe? Hash, some chronic I don’t know what’s in our pipe, our band pipe anyway?
Mark – Play as many shows as we can record as many songs as we can. Just do this until we drop dead or run out of money, and we’re really close on both of ‘em. We’re just gonna keep playing and if we play bigger places and tour with bigger bands that’s great and if we don’t that’s great too. I don’t give a shit we’re gonna keep playing if there’s one kid out there who wants to see us play we’re gonna come to town and we’re gonna put it all on the line and if people don’t like our politics or attitudes fuck ‘em, I don’t give a shit because there’s enough of us who are out there, we need each other we don’t got fuckin nothing else we got each other so we’ll do what we got to do.
BB- any plans to go to Europe?
Mark We’d like to, my idea is to kinda go in the spring but right now I’m a little leery of it with all the shit that’s going on. I still want to go out there we’ve had a lot of people talking to us asking us to come out, its something we’d be interested in doing but we got to watch our ass on that stuff to.
BB- Anybody you want to plug? Closing comments?
Mark – Besides the Costa Nostra, Callaghan, the Swindlers, The GC5 there’s lots of good bands out there: Tanka Ray out of Kansas City a kick ass band. The Roustabouts out of Oklahoma City, Roachenders out of Providence those are some of the better smaller bands. And I mean the ones everyone knows about Pressure Point…
UC- Glover.
Mark – Coaster out of Kansas City great fuckin band good guys,
UC - Whiskey Rebels.
Mark – Whiskey Rebels, The Staggers, The Brassknuckle Boys, we could go on for hours. Even if it’s the kinda music we’re not necessarily crazy about but the people are legit and doing it for the right reasons, the right way we’ll put all our support behind them. Not that any of those bands fit in that category but there’s probably a lot out there who do.
