Neil plays in a group in Newcastle called Dust: Their most popular song is a preposterous affair he has written called “Can you hear the dawn break?”. They are heavily influenced by The Incredible String Band. “We were convinced we would become terribly famous. It was a very kind of stoned seventies but we used to think it was absolutely brilliant at the time”.
After their American record company expresses doubts whether Nightlife has any tracks that would make a good single in the U.S., the Pet Shop Boys begin writing ‘Happiness Is an Option’—which, as it turns out, is never released as a single anyway.
The Boys perform in Bergen, Norway.
Still in New York City, Neil and Chris enjoy an evening with Danny Tenaglia at Brooklyn’s Output dance club. (The next day, Chris enthuses on their website that they ‘just had the BEST time’ there.)
New in U.K. record stores today: ‘Perfect Motion’ — Jon Savage’s Secret History of Second-Wave Psychedelia 1988–93, a vinyl-only various-artists compilation that includes the Extended Version of the PSB track ‘The Sound of the Atom Splitting.’