Pet Shop Boys - Versus America Book

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negative1
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Pet Shop Boys - Versus America Book

#1 Post by negative1 »

ok, been going through this book, and here is a brief preview of the text:
================================================================

Pet Shop Boys versus America. A book by Chris Heath. Photographs by Pennie Smith.

No other pop group in recent years has faced celebrity
with such intelligence, humour and prudence as the
Pet Shop Boys. Nowhere else is celebrity more glorious
or more preposterous than in America. So when the
Pet Shop Boys met America head-on, it was always
going to be a fascinating collision.

It was with an acute mixture of anticipation and
trepidation that the Pet Shop Boys finally decided to
tour the USA and Canada for the first time in 1991.

Typically, instead of dipping their toes in the unknown
water, they chose this moment to present themselves
in the midst of a lavish, thoughtful and cripplingly
expensive theatrical ensemble. For a month their
spirits rose and fell as they faced the American record
industry’s incessant banal rituals, collided with other
notables (Axl Rose, Liza Minnelli, Steven Spielberg),
laughed and rowed amongst themselves, and somehow
squeezed out a curiously honest triumph from the
whole strange, manic brouhaha.

Throughout the journey’s many moods they were
shadowed, hour by hour, by Chris Heath and Pennie
Smith, watching, recording and photographing the
entire experience. Pet Shop Boys versus America is a
fascinating, gripping document of modern celebrity in
America, and also of the Pet Shop Boys themselves.

£15.99

Chris Heath, who has known the Pet Shop Boys since before
their first hit single 'West End Girls' in 1985, is
contributing editor at Details magazine in the USA. In
Britain he writes regularly for The Face, The Daily
Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph and Empire magazine.
He is also the author of the book Pet Shop Boys,
Literally.

Pennie Smith, who first met the Pet Shop Boys when
she photographed them on the set of the 'So Hard'
video in 1990, has worked extensively as a
photojournalist since the mid-seventies. Some of her
photographs have appeared in the New Musical
Express, Italian Vogue, on sundry record sleeves, in
exhibitions around Europe and in the book The Clash
Before and After. She works exclusively in black and
white.

VIKING

Designed at Farrow

VIKING PENGUIN
A division of Penguin Books USA Inc.
375 Hudson Street
New York, N.Y. 10014

PENGUIN BOOKS LTD

Harmondsworth

Middlesex

England

VIKING

Published by the Penguin Group
===========================

Foreword

When we toured North America for the first time a couple of years ago, we
anticipated some sort of confrontation between our pop values and theatrical
presentation (no musicians on-stage) and traditional American rock values,
audiences, critics. In fact the tour was a thrilling experience for us: the show
worked, the audiences were enthusiastic, the crew worked incredibly hard to
present a complicated production in venues of varying sizes — even some of the
critics liked it.

Chris Heath and Pennie Smith travelled with us on the entire tour. This book
is their record of it. We hope you enjoy it.

Neil Tennant, Chris Lowe
Pet Shop Boys

Introduction

As with most projects involving the Pet Shop Boys, this book started out with
litlle formal brief, other than to be a combination of photographs and text
recording their 1991 American tour as it travelled across fourteen cities in the
USA and Canada. If there was a single idea behind it, it was one of what might
happen when two very different cultures — that of the Pet Shop Boys and that
of America — met. The choice of Pennie Smith as the tour photographer was
influenced by her classic photographs of the Clash at American truckstops and
there was certainly an expectation that she might photograph Neil and Chris
against the wide open landscapes of mid-America, or leaning casually against
gas pumps. If she didn’t take those photos, it was because they were not there
to be taken. Even in America the Pet Shop Boys were not, it turned out, the
sort of people who spent very much time in fields or at gas stations.

What we recorded was rather more complicated. The Pet Shop Boys treat
America with an uneasy mixture of priorities and prejudices. It is a country they
lace both with a sense of mission and with a sense of disdain. The same
conundrum would restate itself time and again during the tour — what does it
mean if they want success here but dislike so much of what modern America,
and the modern American, is?

One solution - a rationalization that proud Englishmen abroad have used
for generations — was to convince themselves that the Americans to whom the
Pet Shop Boys appealed were somehow special. They were the disenchanted!

The outcasts! The cheesed-off! In other words, they were precisely those Ameri-
cans who saw in America from within the same faults the Pet Shop Boys saw
from the outside. It was a good answer, and there was some truth in it, but it
was never going to be the whole story.

The Pet Shop Boys had never toured in America before. In 1986 they planned
to tickets even went on sale in Los Angeles — but they pulled out when they
realized how much money they would lose. A couple of years later, after the
release of their Introspective album, they were persuaded by their American record
company, EMI, that it would help their credibility with an American audience if
they toured, and a private agreement was drawn up between EMI and the Pet
Shop Boys whereby they would perform in at least twelve cities following the
release of their next album. In 1991 Neil and Chris decided that, even though that
agreement had been superseded, and even though they would still lose a large sum
of money taking such an elaborate production around American theatres, they
wished to undertake such a tour anyway. Nevertheless, the whole style of the show
was based on a reaction to America. They had been told that you couldn’t tour
America successfully without a live drummer, advice which aggravated them: their
response was to have no musicians on-stage whatsoever, and the theatrical nature
of the performance followed from this decision. It was a typical example of the
way they work: they would tour America but they wouldn’t give an inch.

The spring of 1991 found them at a strange moment. Their latest album,
Behaviour, had been widely proclaimed a masterpiece but had still sold less well
than their previous records. Just before the tour a single, ‘Being Boring’, one of
the songs they were most proud of, became their least successful single in the
British charts for six years, a failure which they struggled to explain to themselves.

These few months caught them by turns battling with and dismissing an unusual
level of self-doubt. Often they would toy with the idea of stopping what they
were doing — less, I felt, because they were genuinely considering disbanding
than because raising the question reminded them why they wanted to be a pop
group, and helped remind them which things they should do, and which they
should not. These matters were thrown more keenly into focus by being in
America — there is nowhere else where success is valued so highly, or where the
decisions and sacrifices you make in chasing success are more nakedly apparent.

Their American career started well - in 1986 ‘West End Girls’ reached number
one and was followed by a string of hit singles — but recently it had tailed off,
and the effort required to reverse that had sometimes seemed unachievable.
Their feelings about this would swing from hour to hour, from being annoyed
that the largest nation of pop listeners were stubbornly resisting them to being
arrogantly dismissive of anyone silly enough not to like them, to having the
detached pride of those whose creative accomplishments are sufficient satisfaction
in themselves, to being studiously determined to woo new converts, to keenly
wanting not to even be seen to be trying to be liked. Part of this book is indeed
about the Pet Shop Boys versus America, but in other parts America sits in the
background and the true tussle is that of the Pet Shop Boys versus themselves.

2

2

One of the conceits of the previous Pet Shop Boys book, Pet Shop Boys, Literally;
was that it treated a pop music tour as though it were the subject of social
anthropology, and thus the text was ritualistically inclusive in its detail, and
virtually no events of even the most mundane significance were omitted. Though
scenes in this new book are often presented in the same detail, the overall text
is not inclusive in the same way. The narration, just as the photographs, takes
the form of snapshots. The reader is eavesdropping, and most of the time those
speaking have forgotten they are being listened to.

In hindsight, Neil and Chris remember this tour as thrilling and fairly
triumphant. Their memories may be unfairly skewed towards the happier times;
this book, by contrast, is unfairly skewed towards the more difficult moments.
The Pet Shop Boys are not the sort of people to say a huge amount during
moments of exuberance, preferring to sip a little champagne, perhaps, and then
move on. At times of boredom, irritation or crisis they are rather more garrulous.
If in the text that follows they occasionally seem irrational, or inconsistent, or
pompous, or nasty, remember that most of the words in this book aren’t those
of public statements but of private, everyday babble; words that, in more normal
circumstances, would have been forgotten as soon as they were spoken.

=================

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Re: Pet Shop Boys - Versus America Book

#2 Post by negative1 »

Here are the word, and pdf previews:
-----------------------------------------------
Image

Image

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Re: Pet Shop Boys - Versus America Book

#3 Post by greenmile »

I'd love to know your workflow. What software do you use? What kind of hardware?

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Re: Pet Shop Boys - Versus America Book

#4 Post by negative1 »

i have several different set ups:
=================================
1 hp flatbed 11x14 scanner
2 different hp all in ones with scanner

- several tablets running hp scanning software
- also running paint shop pro to scan using TWAIN scanner interface

- using windows XP, and 7 for OS
=================================

basically if its two pages like small books, scan both pages at once vertically, then rotate.

do basic cropping and some rotation if pages are slanted.
----------

scan at 300dpi

--------

color correction if pages are off color.
-------

save all images to jpg, or png
numbered
--------

i usually try to scan several chapters depending on how much time i have.

-----

i use abby finereader 12 corporate for windows on windows surface tablet running 8.1

import the images, it does the OCR, and then i go through the text, make corrections.
with comparison of images.

this can export to all formats. PDF, epub, WORD, and plain text.

some books take a long time, booklets are much quicker.

later
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Re: Pet Shop Boys - Versus America Book

#5 Post by negative1 »

Some more sample text:
=======================

3

Sunday, 17 March

Coconut Grove, Miami, a suburb of boutiques with pastel pink and green
awnings. The Pet Shop Boys and entourage are staying at the Mayfair House
Hotel. Everyone is booked under their own names except for Neil (C. Heston)
and Chris (R. Welch). Across the road from the hotel Grove Calloways is holding
a ZZ Top Hot Legs Contest. ‘Men and women’. For the finest legs, free ZZ
Top concert tickets.

On the first night in America Chris and Neil host a tour party barbecue
on the hotel roof. It looks like the party scene in Spinal Tap, someone says.
Spirits are high. They talk about Japan: amusing mishaps, the return of their
number-one fan Eko, Mr Udo, the promoter they had duelled with on their last
tour there. He apparently praised the show, but didn’t come to see it. He threw
them a party, but didn’t turn up. I have just flown in. Joining a tour after it has
begun is like arriving late at a party: you feel that everyone has drunk more than
you and is talking about something they understand but which you yourself
can’t quite grasp.

In Japan they went to see one of George Michael’s cover version concerts.
‘We were asked backstage beforehand,’ said Neil, ‘and Chris made a remark
about his haircut.’
‘I said I really liked “Careless Whisper”,’ says Chris. ‘And I asked, “You do
‘Killer’?” and he said, “I’ll do it first so you can go.” ’
‘He always puts himself down,’ says Neil. ‘He tells you it’s half-empty.’

Chris scowls when he is told that their new British single, ‘Where the Streets
Have No Name (I Can’t Take My Eyes off You)’, which melds a U2 song and an
old Frankie Valli tune into a high-energy stomper, has entered the charts at number
seven. The mid-week prediction had been number three. That afternoon Neil has
been to see the film everyone is talking about, The Doors. No good. He says he saw
it so that he would have something to talk about in interviews.

Record Mirror, 16 March, ‘Strange Behaviour’, an interview with Tim Nicholson:
‘This tour is going to be even more theatrical than the last one,’ explains Neil. ‘The last

5

tour was more of a theatrical event, whereas this is more operatic. There won't be any
musicians onstage, just dancers and backing singers, and the songs link together lyrically.
I guess the only comparison I can think of would be with David Bowie’s “Diamond
Dogs" tour, bill even then he had some guitarist playing solos onstage.’
Won’t that slick in the throats of an American audience in particular?
'Yes,' says Chris, a self-satisfied grin on his face. . .
‘We've always been told,’ says Neil, ‘that to break really big in America you’ve got
to tour extensively. Well, this is our response to that opinion. We’re saying, “OK, we’ll
tour, but it will have to be on our own terms and you will have to deal with that.’ This
tour will be a challenge to an American audience in particular because it is so alien to
what they have been used to.’

Monday, 18 March

Interviews. Chris is on the phone to Dublin radio. Ticket sales for Dublin are
terrible. Before he dials they wonder whether the Irish have reacted badly to
their U2 cover. ‘We have got a nerve,’ sniggers Chris, ‘doing a cover version
and then slagging off the group ...’ A few minutes later he is telling the DJ he’s
a big U2 fan.

The next interviewer is here in person. Sasha from Paris Elle. There are a
load of European journalists in town, flown in by EMI to see their high-priority
new signing, Huey Lewis and the News. Pet Shop Boys have reluctantly agreed
to see them. Sasha asks questions; Chris fiddles with his hair, uninterested, while
Neil goes into a well-rehearsed spiel.

‘... I’m not a huge opera fan. What I’m a fan of — one of the biggest things
in the theatre in London is the English National Opera, because they reinterpret
classic opera in very different, inventive ways. And it’s also out of the rock format
... This time we wanted to be as brave as possible. Someone told us, “When
you tour America you have to have a live drummer.” That’s when we decided
to have no musicians on-stage.’

How are the audiences reacting? Sasha asks.

‘They leave halfway through,’ says Chris. Then he says that actually they
love it.

‘I think people in the music business underestimate people,’ says Neil. ‘If
you do things differently and with a lot of effort, they appreciate it.’

More questions.

‘It’s no accident,’ says Neil, ‘that when we do a show it’s an ensemble show.
We’re two of fifteen people. It’s not a star show.’

Do you feel more comfortable, Sasha wonders, in the studio or on-stage?

‘I think when you’re in the studio,’ says Chris, ‘you’re looking forward to
being on-stage, and vice versa.’

‘I’m always surprised how much I like being on-stage,’ says Neil.

As usual they’re quizzed about their collaborations with Liza Minnelli,

Dusty Springfield. Old stars, summarizes Sasha, making a comeback.

7


1

'I think we've done our bit' says Chris.

We haven't viewed it as helping them out,' points out Neil, worrying that
the interviewer’s assumption has remained unchallenged, We worked with them
because we admire them.’ But no more. ‘We don't want to he categorized. The
next would be someone young. I don't think there are enough young pop stars.
There are too many like me who are thirty-six.’

They're asked about sampling.

I think it’s really good. It’s great,’ says Chris. ‘I like anything that’s new.’

What would you think if someone had a hit by sampling one of your

records?

‘I’d he thrilled to bits.’ Pause. ‘I’d want money off it, of course.’

Sasha leaves.

‘It’s not fair we have to do interviews and the band don’t,’ grumps Chris.

Neil doesn’t respond. He is leafing through one of those perfect-bound
pieces of hotel advertorial reading, a guide to ‘the 1oo best hotels of the
world’.

‘This isn’t one of them,’ complains Chris. ‘It’s a dump.’

‘We should get Jill to keep this,’ says Neil, meaning the hotel guide. ‘Jill’ is
Jill Wall, their manager, who runs their office in London.

Chris looks around. ‘All the hotels in America are designed for group sex.

Glass surfaces. The hot tub. Mirrors. It’s kink city.’

Sandwiches arrive. We are in Neil’s room.

‘I haven’t got any sandwiches in my room,’ Chris complains.

‘It’s the way he says that,’ Neil says to me, ‘as if he’s got the worst room in
the hotel.’

‘I had a bath,’ mutters Chris, ‘and the cold tap fell off.’

They survey their schedule.

‘I see Finland has been sneaked in here,’ says Neil.

‘I’m not doing it,’ says Chris immediately.

Neil considers the cheek of it: ‘One of these French interviewers is from
Finland.’

‘Slippery, aren’t they?’ grunts Chris.

The next interviewer is from Express magazine.

Neil’s spiel again: ‘. . . the point of what we do isn’t as performers.
We are songwriters. We have put together a show which visualizes our
songs

The interviewer muses on their unpopularity in France, the only European
country where they have never had regular hits.

10

'I can't explain it’ sighs Neil. 'it's always very difficult to explain why you aren't popular. I think maybe we’re too English.’

The Beatles were English, says the interviewer.

I don’t know,’ says Neil. ‘We’d like to be popular in France. We like Paris.’
We’re back into French fashion,’ says Chris. ‘We were into Italy for awhile, but we’re back. Chevignon, Chipie ... ’

There are now Chevignon cigarettes, the interviewer points out.

'That’s so French,’ says Neil. ‘No one knows in France that smoking is bad
for you,’

Neil shows me a few pieces of fan mail he brought from Japan. Maho says, ‘It
was very exciting concert! It looks like movie, because many scene make up one
story. I'll never forget the wonderful concert as long as I live.’ Miyako says, ‘My

dream is to live in London where you live.’ Mariko says, ‘Your dances are very

cute! I never dreamed you danced such pretty!!’ Yuki and Ryoko say, ‘You’re leaving Japan, aren’t you? Your show have occupied a part of our mind for good.
The meanings, the implications, the theme are too complicated to understand completely yet. But we never cease thinking about them. Yesterday we saw you
at the disco “Gold”. Sometimes we wondered if we should (or could) say
greetings to you, however, we didn’t dare to. If we bothered you by hanging around you in such private time, we feel so sorry ... Ultimate gratitude and thousands of kisses for you from Yuki and Ryoko for having given us so many
dreams’

More interviews. They field questions about ‘How Can You Expect to be Taken
Seriously?’, a song deflating the pomposities of pop stars. They say there are five
or six real life models for the song. The interviewer pushes. Sting?

Sting . ..?’ mutters Neil, even-handedly.

He’s a possible contender, isn’t he?’ laughs Chris.

I don’t think pop stars should get involved in important things,’ says Neil.
I don’t think it’s their role. I think they should criticize . . . There’s definitely a
side of us that does things to annoy people, as a critique of the whole rock
business. We always criticize. We’re terribly critical people. We wish we weren’t,
really, because it makes life quite difficult. You notice what’s going on around
you and it doesn’t necessarily make for a comfortable life. If people have
comfortable lives they’re almost not aware of what’s going on. I think that’s
what makes for the comfort. We have a sort of funny pessimism, always expecting
the worst.’

11

Pet Shop Boys

Versus America

He sighs, then relaunches into further explanation. ‘After a while the
bullshi, the people not telling you the truth, starts to wear you down. It can
make you angry, the stroking of ego. In America you have to do a lot of
meet’n’greets it’s a deal you do so they’ll play your record. They don’t
play your record because they like it, they do it because they’ve been paid, or
because you’ve done them a favour. I think people in America feel it, but no
one revolts against it any more. I think American capitalism is based upon a
certain amount of corruption being acceptable, which I don’t think it would be
in Europe.’

The interviewer asks why they worked with Liza Minnelli.

‘She liked “Rent”,’ explains Chris. He turns to Neil. ‘Is that the official
reason?’

‘It’s bullshit,’ says Neil, and tells the real story, all dull record company
machinations, then talks about the record. ‘I was trying to make some of the
lyrics sound like they might have been written by Jacques Brel, except in
English’

Chris starts talking about his new house, and about architects he likes. ‘I
like the attitude the French have. You can do whatever you want. In England
you couldn’t do that because Prince Charles wouldn’t let you.’

You don’t like Prince Charles? the interviewer wonders.

‘No,’ says Chris, ‘I think he should be garrotted.’

Neil talks about some of his enthusiasms: Shostakovich, signed first editions
by Graham Greene, late-Victorian paintings. The interviewer wonders if Chris
likes such paintings too.

‘Not really,’ he says. ‘I’ve got some modern art, but I just find art becomes
decoration. I’m trying to design this house so it would work best without any
art, without any belongings.’

Neil is asked about politics and soon winds round to his motor car theory:
“To me the main thing that is wrong in the world is people driving cars. We had
a war because we were driving cars.’

‘Neil can’t drive,’ Chris chips in.

‘I think it’s the fundamental evil,’ explains Neil.

‘You’re the only person who thinks that,’ says Chris.

‘Yes,’ Neil agrees, ‘but I think I’m right.’

The interviewer asks about SIDA. AIDS.

‘I think a lot of our songs have been about that. It’s changed pop music
completely, because pop music is about sex and AIDS has changed sex. Night-

12

clubbing has become more about dancing and getting out of your head than a
courtship ritual, and so dance music has become more pure. Disco was sexual
"love to love you baby”, heavy breathing. Dance music now is heavy beats and
you dance by yourself. These two things — that and the death of communism -
have changed society entirely, and I think that it’s difficult to know what to do
or think in the aftermath.’

For his final question the interviewer asks about charity.

‘We do a lot for charity,’ says Chris, ‘but we don’t like to talk about it.’

Like what? he asks.

‘I can’t tell you,’ says Chris.

The next interviewer is from Salut. He wants to know whether they’re bored
with granting interviews.

‘You start giving the wrong answers because you’re bored with the right
ones,’ says Chris.

‘Or you say horrible things,’ adds Neil.

They tell him this is their farewell tour.

You’re splitting up? he asks, wide-eyed.

‘No, we’re not splitting up,’ says Chris. ‘It’s the Farewell to the Fans
tour.’

And welcome to what? he asks.

‘Solitude,’ says Chris.

They explain the tour’s poor financial standing. They are budgeted, right
now, to lose around half-a-million pounds. ‘Now we can afford to lose a lot of
money,’ says Neil. ‘It’s an amusing way to go bankrupt.’

‘The wigs are a thousand pounds each,’ says Chris, ‘and there’s thirty-four

wigs.’

‘And,’ adds Neil, ‘there’s a man to look after the wigs.’

The interviewer asks if Chris has been living up to his reputation by
complaining a lot.

‘I’m bored with complaining,’ he says. ‘I’m past complaining. I’ve
become’ — he grins — ‘a much nicer person recently.’

The door bangs.

‘It’s only the wind,’ says Chris and everyone chortles. The interviewer says
that in France Behaviour was promoted with pictures of a Queen lookalike, its
slogan ‘The Queen’s Favourite Group’.

Neil nods. ‘They thought it was fabulously arresting, so we thought it must

13

Pet Shop Boys versus America

appeal to a French sense of humour.’ In Japan, he says, they asked whether Neil
and Chris would add to Behaviour a bonus disc of them reading their favourite
lairy tale, supposedly to help the Japanese fans learn English.

Pete arrives with a new T-shirt for Chris. Pete is a friend of Chris who
used to work for them and who is travelling on the tour. On the front of the T-
shirt it says America. Chris has also just bought a new Mossimo hat, but he
plans to hide it from the dancers until they leave Miami so that they can’t copy
him.

We head for a radio station, Power 96 - Neil, Chris, myself, the photographer
Pennie Smith, Pete, their large security man and assistant, Dainton, and their
American manager, Arma Andon. The Miami concert needs promoting — only
2,8oo of a possible 5,000 tickets have been sold so far. In the limousine Neil
plays some songs by their protege Dave Cicero: ‘Middle-class Life’, ‘Heaven’,
‘Then’, ‘Love is Everywhere’. ‘All of them,’ says Chris, ‘are about failing with
women.’ He thinks a moment. ‘We should market him as the new Bay City
Rollers rolled into one.’

We pull up at the radio station. For a joke Arma gets out his American
Express card and a bundle of cash and says, ‘Why don’t we just make this real
easy? Two minutes. You can wait in the lobby.’

But they have to go in. ‘Oh,’ sighs Neil, ‘the music business used to be a
lot simpler.’

As we wait they discuss Trevor. Trevor is one of the two street dancers
whom they asked to join the tour after they appeared in the ‘How Can You
Expect To Be Taken Seriously?’ video. They think he has been shopping too
much.

'We should pay him less,’ says Chris.

'I think we do,’ says Neil.

They are kept waiting for ages. Arma offers to do his ‘nuclear management
bil’, but they decline. Instead they chat about Los Angeles.

'L A is our lady,’ says Chris. ‘It’s about the only one.’

Finally the DJ introduces them: ‘Neil and Chris from the Pet Shop Boys
getting down with Cox on the radio.’

‘Is that meant to be a double entendre?’ asks Neil.

‘What do you want to talk about?’ the DJ asks.

'Tickets,’ says Neil bluntly,

‘Selling tickets,' confirms Chris. The DJ nods. ‘We talked about our sexual
preferences last time.'

Pet Shop Boys versus America

The interview begins.

‘So, Nick ... ’ he says.

‘Neil, actually,’ says Neil.

The next station is called Y-100 and there they are greeted by a man called A1
Chio.

‘Are both of you into Motown?’ asks Al.

‘Why are you asking?’ says Chris defensively. ‘It’s a loaded question.’

‘When I was growing up,’ answers Neil, ‘it was the Beatles and Motown.
I used to like the Supremes.’

‘Chicken supreme, I like,’ says Chris.

As at most radio stations, they are asked to do loads of station IDs, whereby
they introduce each of the station’s DJs and various local campaigns. One of
today’s is ‘Hi! This is Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe urging you to participate in
recycling — everyone’s help counts.’

‘I did that one already for Japan,’ says Neil.

‘They should have recycled it, saved the tape,’ says Chris.

On the way back Arma talks business, trying to get them interested in
doing a Japanese TV ad and explaining what doors might open in America ‘if
“Streets” is a hit’. He pauses. ‘And I believe it is a hit. But then I thought “So
I lard” was a hit.’

They discuss the Katie Puckrik decision. Katie, one of eight classically
trained dancers, was to have sung a song in the show, ‘In the Night’. It was
rehearsed, but at the very last moment, in Japan, they decided it didn’t work
and substituted a speedily rehearsed version of ‘Rent’, principally performed by
Sylvia. ‘My Fair Lady gets changed in Philadelphia,’ they rationalize. ‘That’s
show business.’ Nevertheless, Katie didn’t take it well.

Suddenly Chris announces, for no obvious reason, ‘I like the morning.
There’s so much hope in the morning. There’s so much potential, which is never
realized by 8.30 in the evening.’

We dine at a Cuban restaurant, Victor’s Cafe, with their American press agent,
Susan Blond, Arma and Arina’s wife, Alexandra.

‘You get to do all the fun things,’ Neil tells Alexandra in the car there. ‘You
get to go to the Seaquarium,. We get asked, “What’s a West End Girl?” ’

Anna’s children are here in Miami They have been making friends with
Dainton, through one of them said to Arma, ‘I know why they call him Dainton -
because he puts a dent in everything.

Pet Shop Boys versus America

‘When did you discover you could sing?’ Arma asks Neil.

‘I only sang because Chris didn’t sing,’ he answers. ‘Technically I’m not a
very good singer.’

The evening is lost in old stories: Arma going to Spain to give Salvador
Dali money for a sculpture John Lennon was giving to Ringo Starr; Susan Blond
being filmed naked by Andy Warhol.

‘Oh, Susan!’ says Arma at this last revelation. ‘That’s something I didn’t
know about you. I’m so proud of you!’

16
========================

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