Pet Shop Boys Community

rollo wrote:I wonder if those video clips ever made it into the wide world?

Yes, there was a scratch version of West End Girls (its on the screens behind them on Whistle Test and the MTV awards)

boyjohn wrote:

the8thark wrote:Well could you tell me the official name of this original mix of the song so I'd know if I have heard it or not. I'm not sure I have.

Must have heard this hundreds of times in 1984-85 on KROQ, took me years to get used to the hit version

Thank you for this. I'd not heard it before. But I've played it a few times now. And I prefer the hit version more. This original version is a little too stripped back for my liking. Still it's nice to hear what the PSB originally had in mind for the song.

I think it's more what Bobby O originally had in mind. I've not heard much of his stuff, but he did seem to only have one formula - handclaps + choir = hit.

I suppose it's fair to say that they wanted to sound like Bobby O initially, but it's difficult to imagine it was really what they'd been planning if it only took a couple of hours to record!

bobby o was a one trick pony...

Don't suppose anyone has a copy of this do they as has disappeared off YouTube now....

Link still not working sadly.

Tom Angel wrote: Fri 19 Apr 2024, 11:00 pm Link still not working sadly.

Andie wrote: Sun 21 Jul 2013, 10:11 am

jasonjohn wrote:Chris is so sheepish when he gets asked how they met.

I wonder how true that story really is

I've often wondered that I guess we'll never know.

I too have always wondered about the veracity of the electrical shop story, and naming of the band, and to a much lesser extent the sleeve for Introspective (my favourite sleeve). But they embellished the electrical shop story with plausibility in the recent Imagine documentary. And they did too with the pet shop owning friends. Chris joked about the Introspective cover in the documentary as well saying this is when they invented the pride flag, but seems clear it was just a design decision by Farrow and the boys, especially as the cassette version was totally not the colours of the flag.

Shampooch - what a great name for a Poodle parlour! Unlikely one makes up all this interconnected stuff, so adds amusing credibility to the Pet Shop Boys name.

So I give the stories the benefit of the doubt and think they're true.....with may be a little lingering of doubt!

moxlox wrote: Sat 20 Apr 2024, 10:17 am [quote=Andie post_id=502136 time=<a href="tel:1374397879">1374397879</a> user_id=4905]

jasonjohn wrote:Chris is so sheepish when he gets asked how they met.

I wonder how true that story really is

I've often wondered that I guess we'll never know.

I too have always wondered about the veracity of the electrical shop story, and naming of the band, and to a much lesser extent the sleeve for Introspective (my favourite sleeve). But they embellished the electrical shop story with plausibility in the recent Imagine documentary. And they did too with the pet shop owning friends. Chris joked about the Introspective cover in the documentary as well saying this is when they invented the pride flag, but seems clear it was just a design decision by Farrow and the boys, especially as the cassette version was totally not the colours of the flag.

Shampooch - what a great name for a Poodle parlour! Unlikely one makes up all this interconnected stuff, so adds amusing credibility to the Pet Shop Boys name.

So I give the stories the benefit of the doubt and think they're true.....with may be a little lingering of doubt!
[/quote]

Love the name Shampooch!
I think the sories are probably true, but embellished a bit!

moxlox wrote: Sat 20 Apr 2024, 10:17 amI too have always wondered about the veracity of the electrical shop story, and naming of the band, and to a much lesser extent the sleeve for Introspective (my favourite sleeve). But they embellished the electrical shop story with plausibility in the recent Imagine documentary. And they did too with the pet shop owning friends. Chris joked about the Introspective cover in the documentary as well saying this is when they invented the pride flag, but seems clear it was just a design decision by Farrow and the boys, especially as the cassette version was totally not the colours of the flag.

Shampooch - what a great name for a Poodle parlour! Unlikely one makes up all this interconnected stuff, so adds amusing credibility to the Pet Shop Boys name.

So I give the stories the benefit of the doubt and think they're true.....with may be a little lingering of doubt!

Where did you think the name of the band came from?

TallThinMan wrote: Sat 20 Apr 2024, 11:03 am

moxlox wrote: Sat 20 Apr 2024, 10:17 am Shampooch - what a great name for a Poodle parlour! Unlikely one makes up all this interconnected stuff, so adds amusing credibility to the Pet Shop Boys name.

So I give the stories the benefit of the doubt and think they're true.....with may be a little lingering of doubt!

Where did you think the name of the band came from?

Well I have wondered at moments over the years if it were a euphemism or a private joke among friends. Then later in their careers rumours about a specific euphemism which they said horrified them; which I’ll make clear I never thought had any remoteness of truth.

I prefer the nice truth it was from friends who had a pet shop. I hadn’t heard the poodle parlour extension of the anecdote before, or had forgotten. I felt it just made it more likely, rather than them both concocting a story about Shampooch being part of the actual pet shop. Same with going to the electrical shop to get a cable made up for a synth which Neil didn’t have an amp for after he bought it.

The only way you could definitely verify it one way or the other I suspect would be to request a Companies House record of the registered company back in '83 would it be ? If it was Shampooch then all doubts are gone.

I think records are archived after 20 years, but you can request archived info.

Pinhead44 wrote: Sat 20 Apr 2024, 10:27 pm The only way you could definitely verify it one way or the other I suspect would be to request a Companies House record of the registered company back in '83 would it be ? If it was Shampooch then all doubts are gone.

I think records are archived after 20 years, but you can request archived info.

Assuming Shampooch was a limited company. I don’t see any reason to doubt the story.

29 companies by that name on Companies House, so not uncommon:

https://find-and-update.company-informa ... och&page=1

https://find-and-update.company-informa ... och&page=2

As far as the origins of the name of the band, Neil has stated that they had considered West End.

2 points:
-What would the title of West End girls have been had they called themselves West End?
-Consider the implications/ramifications in 1980s of 2 men (straight or otherwise) being in a band called West End with a hit song titled West End girls.

Irony and self-outing at its best!