Like any other good story the Frankfurter story is a long one. Here’s how it goes:
Ever since about 1983-84 Tommy had been writing to a couple of guys in DC, Stuart & Bobby, who did a little fanzine - DScene - and played in a band, Stuge. When they said they wanted to come over the pond for a visit in the summer of 1985 Tommy offered them his parents’ basement as a crash pad and soon the whole place was overflowing w/ Yanks. We got to hear first hand stories of all our DC heroes (and John Stabb!) - they got adopted by the then pretty vibrant Ipswich punk scene and spent hours watching Tommy and Ed trying to skate. We all ate way too many doughnuts and and played the ‘Pile On!’ game till we were covered in bruises. Oh yeah, Stu also came complete with an advance tape of an album by a band called Rites Of Spring that had only been recorded about a month before he flew out and was quite a way away from hitting the streets. Back in DC they might have been experiencing Revolution Summer - but in Ipswich we were going to Extreme Noise Terror rehearsals and learning first hand from the experts (i.e. Americans) how to ‘hang out’ - have you noticed how bad us Brits are at hanging out?
In the end they actually stayed for about 9 weeks and we all got on so well that a regular exchange service was born.
By the time summer ‘86 had come round Tommy had been out to stay w/ Stu in the States, had caught Dag Nasty, Beefeater, Marginal Man, Rites Of Spring in concert, met a load of people, skated a bit and got Pete Murray a parking ticket! In the meantime Ed had moved to London to go to college and was spending his summer working in a part of the college that rented out rooms to tourists. Word had started to get around in DC that there was finally somewhere cool to crash in London and the next 3 summers saw a procession of DC’s finest through the hallowed halls of Campbell House, London, WC1. Even Nirvana/Foo Fighter Dave Grohl slept on Ed’s floor one time when he was on tour with Scream in 1988. Ed finally made it across to DC himself in 1986 (for the Stupids’ US tour) and again in ‘87.
Anyway, the point of this all is that we’d become 100% best buds w/ Stu and Bobby who were - after all - the ‘DC to UK’ trailblazers and it followed that since we were all in bands already we’d end up jamming together at some point. It finally happened in Tommy’s parents’ basement (where else!) in the summer of 1986. Stuge was represented by a singer (Bobby) and a bassist (Stu). The Stupids drummer (Tommy) was in the house and Bad Dress Sense had loaned their guitarist (Ed - he hadn’t joined the Stupids by this time) for the occasion. Frankfurter - the first (and last) Washington DC/Ipswich punk supergroup was born! Bobby’s friend, Gina Pala (dubbed Veruka for the occasion), was also hanging out. A bunch of original songs and a couple of covers (Iggy’s ‘I’ve Gotta Right’ and the garage punk classic ‘Good Guys Don’t Wear White’) were thrown together and Ippo punk godfather, Jim P, was asked to come along and record them on his trusty 4-track. It was a real collaboration with everyone contributing lyrics, riffs and ideas. It was probably the most fun session ever in a ’studio’. Since everyone loved it so much plans were made to release it somehow - for a 4-track it sounded damn good - but since the Stupids weren’t as big at the time as they would be within a few months, no-one was interested. We all dubbed copies for friends and left it at that.
Over the next year Bobby left DC and his band, Stuge, to go to college in Glasgow. They got a new singer and became, Shudder To Think (now I bet you didn’t know that!). The Stupids recorded and released ‘Retard Picnic’, started getting some serious national UK press and went across to the States to tour with NYC metal punkers, Ludichrist. Minus a bassist they asked Stu from Shudder to fill in for the tour - those sessions in the basement the summer before paid off! It was an awesome fortnight and the band rocked.
Skip forward a year:
Ed has joined the Stupids full time and they’re the biggest hardcore band in Europe. All’s going well, but Tommy is bored and frustrated. He needs something to occupy his time and so starts writing a bunch of new songs. Vinyl Solution aren’t keen to put out another Stupids record so soon after ‘Van Stupid’ and so Tommy resurrects the long-forgotten ghost of Frankfurter. As luck would have it BBC Radio 1 are on the phone the same week that V.S. agree to the idea of a Frankfurter mini album asking for a new Stupids session. We suggest Frankfurter instead and they go for it - John Walters was a star as always! A quick phone call to Glasgow to check that Bobby’s able to take part and it’s all signed and sealed. Stu couldn’t make it over from DC due to Shudder and college commitments, but 3 out of 4 is better than none. Like any Tommy Stupid project, this one’s been left half finished and so Ed and Bobby get busy writing lyrics and adding a couple of extra tracks.
I can’t remember whether the Peel session or the album recording came first, but it doesn’t really matter. The were both completely chaotic and 100% fun. At one point during the Peel session the assistant engineer - a woman called Fred - suddenly shouted, ‘I get it! I finally understand what you’re doing. This is great.’ and ushered the producer and the other engineer out of the control room. She wanted to do the whole thing by herself and the others were more than happy to get the hell out and go have a cup of tea! The band covered 7 Seconds’ anthem, ‘We’re Gonna Fight’, but changed the words to ‘We’re Gonna Eat’ for Radio 1 and on the album recorded a tribute to Jerry’s Kids and their classic’Raise The Curtain’ - renaming it to, ‘Raise The Breadknife’ for the occasion.
In order to confuse the public as little as possible the album came out under the name of ‘The Stupids present Frankfurter’ and to be honest, it was more a Tommy Stupid solo project than anything else by then anyway. Bobby did some awesome cartoon artwork (as he had done for the tape release of the 4-track two years earlier) and we made sure that Stu and Veruka got name-checked. Also included in the gang was Bad Dress Sense vocalist, Nick Schnozza, who’d hung out and joined in on the Peel session.
And that, by way of a very long-winded explanation is how the Stupids came to release a mini album under a different name.
The ‘Eat E.P.’ came out in France and Australia as part of a repackaged ‘Van Stupid’ release. The two mini-albums were combined to make one full length LP release. Hard Ons bassist, Ray Ahn, contributed some additional artwork to the Australian release (on Waterfront Records).
As this was supposed to be a budget release Frankfurter went with the generic white sleeve look for the first pressing and whacked a sticker on the front (see above). The second pressing was a little more upmarket with proper printing on the actual sleeve.
