After completing a degree in history at the Polytechnic of North London, Neil takes a job at Marvel Comics, anglicizing spellings and indicating where over-risque woman needed to be redrawn decently. While there he interviews comic fan Marc Bolan, who politely points out that his tape recorder wasn’t working. In 1977 he works at Macdonald Educational Publishing, later moving to ITV Books. In June 1982, he joins Smash Hits.
Neil and Chris take part in a photo shoot with Eric Watson. Some of these photos become iconic PSB images, gracing the ‘Suburbia’ single and, much later, the cover of the book Pet Shop Boys Catalogue.
A remix of Cicero’s ‘Heaven Must Have Sent You Back to Me’ is released as a single; the video is directed by Chris Lowe.
Johnny Marr records the guitar part on ‘Up Against It.’
The Pet Shop Boys perform their Battleship Potemkin score with the Dresdner Sinfoniker in Dresden as part of the celebrations of the city’s 800th anniversary.
The first episode of Mad About the Boy: The Songs of Noel Coward, a three-part series narrated by Neil, airs on BBC Radio 2.
‘Love etc.’ hits #1 on Billboard magazine’s Dance Club Play chart. The same day, the Pet Shop Boys appear for the first time on Israeli television, peforming that very song, ‘Love etc.’ on Kochav Nolad, the Israeli version of Pop Idol.
They perform at Bournemouth International Centre.
They work in a Berlin studio on the song ‘Hell.’
The first of the Boys’ four sold-out ‘Inner Sanctum’ concerts takes place this evening at the Royal Opera House in London.
Now in Italy, they bring their ongoing Dreamworld Tour to the Lucca Summer Festival.