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”.
Frankie Valli’s ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’—which Chris and Neil will much later turn into a medley with ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’—debuts on the U.S. singles chart.
RIAA awards a U.S. gold album to Please.
Essentially: The Pet Shop Boys Story airs this evening on BBC Radio 2.
The Pet Shop Boys are interviewed on BBC2’s The Culture Show.
The Boys’ Cubism concert DVD is released in the U.K. On the same day, they conclude the eight-city ‘German leg’ of their Fundamental Tour with a concert in Stuttgart.
Neil and Chris pay a surprise visit to São Paulo, Brazil, where they perform a brief set at the festivities commemorating the first anniversary of the launch of Sky HDTV at the Golden Hall of the World Trade Center of São Paulo.
Neil notes in his diary that he has begun reading the novel Nice Work by David Lodge. As it soon turns out, it inspires a new PSB song, ‘Love Is a Bourgeois Construct.’
Neil visits the immersive exhibition by Japanese audiovisual artist Ryoji Ikeda at The Strand in London. Afterward, on the Boys’ official website, Neil describes it as ‘extraordinary.’
Wolfgang Tillmans’s single ‘Insanely Alive,’ featuring two PSB remixes, is released today digitally and on 12-inch vinyl. Meanwhile, the Boys perform this evening in Manchester—the first of their Dreamworld Tour shows in the U.K.
The BBC2 television network devotes most of its prime-time programming this evening to the Pet Shop Boys. Among tonight’s three PSB shows is Reel Stories: Pet Shop Boys, in which Neil and Chris comment on assorted videos and performances of theirs with host Dermot O’Leary.