The Shop Assistants formed in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1984. Initially called "Buba & The Shop Assistants", the first line-up only recorded one 7" single prior to abbreviating their name and shedding some members. The personnel for that first single, Something To Do, consisted of David Keegan (guitar), Aggi (Annabel Wright, vocals), John Peutherer (bass), Moray Crawford (drums), and guitar/production by Stephen McRobbie (Stephen Pastel, from indie legends The Pastels).
After the first 7" single was released Pastel and Wright departed to focus on The Pastels. Keegan, Peutherer, and Crawford added vocalist Karen Parker (also heard on the Jesus & Mary Chain's "Just Like Honey"), later adding second vocalist Alex Taylor. Parker, Moray, and Peutherer were later replaced by Sarah Kneale (bass), and drummers Laura McPhail and Ann Donald, completing the best known Shop Assistants lineup in the spring of 1985.
The band began touring and released two EPs in 1985, Shopping Parade on the Subway Organization label and Safety Net on 53rd and 3rd, a label co-owned by David Keegan and Stephen Pastel. As their reputation began to grow the band were invited to record a number of sessions for influential UK radio hosts John Peel and Janice Long. In 1986 Chrysalis/Blue Guitar released the single I Don't Want To Be Friends With You and their only LP, The Shop Assistants, also called Will Anything Happen?
Singer Alex Taylor left the band in 1987 to form The Motorcycle Boy with David Scott on guitar, second guitarist Michael Kerr, Eddie Connelly on bass, and Paul McDermott on drums (the latter three all formerly members of Meat Whiplash). The Shop Assistants would be inactive for the next two years before returning with Kneale moving to lead vocal and MacPhail to bass, with Marguerite Vasquez-Ponte (also a member of Rote Kapelle and Jesse Garon and the Desperadoes, and a former bandmate of Kneale's in The Fizzbombs) joining as drummer, but split up in 1990.
Peel first seemed to start playing the Shop Assistants in 1985 and would continue supporting them with 2 sessions on his show. Listeners on his show also voted several tracks of the Shop Assistants in the 1985 and 1986 Festive Fifty. When the Shop Assistants reformed with a new line up in 1989 and released new material, Peel never played any of them.
03 February 1986: Somewhere In China (7" - Safety Net) 53rd & 3rd (JP: 'I always wanted to go to China. The chances are I'll never will go. Perhaps, Radio One will send me though on some kind of pretext. Only if I didn't come back though')
