Undoing Plumbing Connections For The Washing Machine - If you followed small label indie music in the 70s then UPCFTM are a familiar name that you may not have thought about for years! What happened to them and who were they?
In June 1972 a teenage Gram Gram Charles picked up his first guitar from Sound Blows Music Store on Penchant Ave. Willeyville, California. The store at the time was a hub for small indie artists who were breaking onto the scene and it’s said that this was the place where Hendrix first played the guitar with his teeth. Of course many say he was actually trying to use the strings to remove some stuck peanut and realised he could still bust out a tune, that’s just how talented he was and he never even knew until then!
Gram Gram picked up the guitar fast moving from the Beatles “She Loves Me” to a complete guitar composition of Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells” within weeks of his first strum. The boy was a genius, clearly headed for stardom or some very sweet freelance session guitar gigs until a year later when he met George Wendy an Australian native who had been moved to the USA by his parents so they could pursue their dream opening a family run fast food restaurant.
Wendy’s family were not too rich due to their business partner effectively stealing their idea and opening a newer restaurant over the street using the family business name. People flocked to the new restaurant not knowing it was an immoral off spin of their favorite burger joint. Due to their misfortune and lack of funds to fight the case in court the family took to begging with George being sent to local laundromats to perform old 20s show tunes on a washboard.
That’s where Gram Gram and George first met and struck up a friendship. Due to their love of show tunes Gram and George started jamming over classic tunes with new “cutting edge” lyrical styles (according to 2007 interview with George) and created a style they referred to as Wrang Wrang Rap a Tap Tap. Using the basis of show tunes and an overlaid fresh version of poetry and screaming the duo entertained (sometimes unwillingly) the laundromat customers for the coming year before being picked up by a kid in town called Mike, who claimed to own a record label and said he could sort them out a 6 figure record deal.
After meeting the duo, Mike hand wrote some business cards with the business name “Wrecked Chords Records” and started trying to promote the duo around town.
The pair at this time were still un-named and Mike had informed them that a name may help them get some gigs. They were having trouble trying to find a name. One afternoon in the laundromat, after a successful gig, the son of the owner asked “Do You Kids Know About Undoing Plumbing Connections For The Washing Machine?”, whilst confusingly looking at the back of a faulty machine. Gram jokingly remarked “Yeah they are going to be gigging down at the old fire house next week”. The joke made everyone chuckle for a moment and then a following few seconds of seriousness and thought led to the duo looking at each other and nodding their agreement. Undoing Plumbing Connections For The Washing Machine was born.
Their first gig came from a local church looking for some youngsters to help make their place of worship hip to the kids again after losing most of their congregation to the 60s. It was a regular gig being played every saturday afternoon. Groupies started showing up wearing Satan crosses turned the Christian way up so the church leaders didn’t notice. Of course the Church were happy and the kids kept coming.
Fast forward to 1975, the band had just entered their early 20s and gigs around town and even surrounding towns were numbering in their 3s and 4s a month. The band even got paid in free soft drinks from some venues and Mike said he was still working out the contract details for their 6 figure deal. The duo were patient though, a steady 25-35 people came to every gig and bootleg tapes were said to have been seen being passed around at gigs in New York City, the shining light for the 70s music scene.
4 albums later and 46 self released singles, no deal in sight the band were hitting the 80s the same way they had been in the 70s, nowhere! Mike was fired and the band took to the road organising supporting gigs in exchange for food. Playing at a ranch in Marin County belonging to a man called George Lucas the pair were paid for the first time ever for a gig. Of course the amount was never verified but they had to leave quickly and somehow the pair seemed to be doing well for money after that. There are rumors that the ranch owner was so rich that he didn’t notice that the down on luck pair had stolen a Gold plated robot suit and sold it to the US government as proof of intelligent alien life for millions of dollars. Note:When questioned on this incident the pair decline to comment.
UPCFTM returned to their home town and resumed their old gig schedule at the church on saturdays and various bars around town. Washed up and drugged out the pair continue this to this day and have received a cult following.
Since the “ranch” gig the duo have released at least 20 albums all on casette and have never charged. Music style has varied over the years and they have even gained thank you credits inside the albums of some well known artists. British band Ned’s Atomic Dustbin credit their name choice to seeing UPCFTM and realising that a household item was fine in a band name and Rage Against The Machine have mentioned that they originally were going to be called Rage Against Undoing Plumbing Connections For The Washing Machine after they saw one of the church gigs. UPCFTM have claimed that Rage Against The Machine influenced heavily from the Wrang Wrang Rap a Tap Tap style they invented. As of 2011 the pair were preparing a possible law suit. Of course some say the ranch pot is running dry and they need to generate more money.
Did you ever receive a UPCFTM tape passed around at a gig, did you ever see the legendary band for yourself? Tell us your UPCFTM stories.
‘Unhinged cards’ is an entertainment industry term for stand up comics who are on the brink of insanity. Usually used by management, recent years have seen the term’s use popularised and now means almost any comedian with loose cannon tendencies.
In 2004, Mike Rolands was dubbed an unhinged card after he stayed up all night boozing with the management of a respected London comedy venue. During the session, he referred to the management as ‘greedy hypocritical sinners’ after discovering their takings for the night. He then went on what can only be descibed as a rampage, gutting the entire venue, stating that it “stank a bit funny and needed a clean!”
Later that same year, Casey Fletcher gained the title after he pulled out and displayed a penis from a window of his tour bus, resulting in the death of three older women in the coach sat adjacent in the traffic. It wasn’t even his penis.
In 2007, Laura Lyons proved that women are just as deserving of the ‘unhinged card’ badge, when she viciously attacked a male heckler from the crowd of one of her Edinburgh festival dates. After several visits to the man in hospital, the pair are now happily married and are said to enjoy a good laugh about how they met.