On August 19th, Neil and Chris meet by chance in an electronics shop on the Kings Road. Realizing they have a common interest in dance music, they begin to write together. Initially they call themselves West End; later they come up with the name Pet Shop Boys, a name derived from some friends who work in a pet shop in Ealing. “We thought it sounded like an English rap group”.
Chris and Neil are interviewed in Chris’s London home by Chris Heath. (The interview ultimately appears in the Somewhere show souvenir booklet.)
A promotional CD titled Pet Shop Boys Story, consisting of eleven tracks (mostly singles) taken from various phases of their career, is given away with copies of the U.K. Mail on Sunday newspaper.
Unhappy with some of the vocals he has recently re-recorded for ‘Give It a Go,’ Neil has Andrew Dawson reinstate some of the demo’s original vocal tracks.
Two weeks to the day after the Boys had started work on it, the new PSB recording ‘Oppressive (The Best Gay Possible),’ which puts to music excerpts from a recent speech by Irish drag artist Panti Bliss, debuts online.