Sunday, May 12, 1968 Robin accepts the NME poll award for “Best New Group” (on behalf of his bandmates) from Roger Moore at Wembley Empire Pool in London.
Saturday, May 18, 1968 The NME announces that the group is officially on holiday until they resume recording sessions in June. Robin later tells the paper of these travels: “After ‘Jumbo’ we went on holiday to different parts of the globe and met up again unfortunately in different parts of the globe.” Barry picks up the story saying: “Strangely none of us knew where the others were going. I went to Los Angeles and got a bit fed up with the scene there. A few people I knew there I found to be phoney and I wasn’t enjoying myself. So I came home and then went to Rome and when I got to the airport Robin was standing there. And it was a strange thing because I had just decided to go there on the spur of the moment. It was very weird considering that I could have gone anywhere. I thought Robin was in India but apparently he got fed up with it and decided to go to Rome as well. It’s the telepathy thing again. It crops up all the time.”
Saturday, June 8, 1968 The NME reports that a proposed tour of Japan has been pushed back to September. On television, the group is back from holiday and seen on Southern Television’s Time For Blackburn!
Wednesday, June 12, 1968 Using IBC’s eight-track recorder, The Bee Gees tape ‘Kitty Can’, ‘I.O.I.O’ (later completed for Cucumber Castle), ‘Let There Be Love’ and two other instrumental jams called ‘Stepping Out’ and ‘No Name’ (which feature only Maurice, Vince and Colin). Because the tape machine is new (and made in the US), a voltage converter and vari-speed are employed to get the tapes to run at pitch. This will cause all of the recordings for the band’s next long player, Idea, to run at wildly different speeds in each mix.
Thursday, June 13, 1968 At IBC Studio A, Robin demos a number of his recent songs, singing and playing his own
guitar accompaniment. These include ‘Indian Gin And Whisky Dry’, ‘The Band Will Meet Mr Justice’, ‘Heaven In My Hands’, ‘The People’s Public Poke Song’, ‘The Girl To Share Each Day’, ‘My Love Life Expired’, and ‘Come Some Christmas Eve Or Halloween’. Also today, rough mixes are made of ‘Let There Be Love’.
Friday, June 14, 1968 At IBC Studio A, the group lays down the wistful ‘Kilburn Towers’ in eight takes, as well as three passes of Vince Melouney’s ‘Such A Shame’ on eight-track.
Vince: “It’s all about that it was such a shame that everything was falling apart, that’s what the song’s about. It mentions Stigwood in the lyrics. In fact, I made a big mistake on that song to be honest with you. Barry loved it, wanted to sing it and I said, ‘No, I want to sing it!’ I wish I had let Barry sing it now.”
Monday, June 17, 1968 At IBC Studio A, the group records a full band version of ‘Indian Gin And Whisky Dry’ in a single take with engineers Phillip Wade and Damon Lyon-Shaw.
Robin: “I think we got the idea to finish up the song from that demo [taped June 13th]. That was actually written when I was in India. I came up with the idea in New Delhi. I actually saw the title on a menu in a restaurant in India and sort of took the title from that and then finished it up together with Barry and everyone in London when I got back.”
Tuesday, June 18, 1968 At IBC Studio A, the band record ‘When The Swallows Fly’ in four takes, as well as four or five passes of a backing track titled ‘No Name’.
Robin: “[‘When The Swallows Fly’] was written in Munich, I think. It was about the same time as
‘Swan Song’ was written. It was an IBC song. It was one of my favourites. I think Barry’s vocal on that is fantastic.”
Thursday, June 20, 1968 At IBC Studio A, The Bee Gees record seven takes of the rockin’ ‘Idea’, as well as three passes of
‘Come Some Halloween Or Christmas Eve’ (and possibly the beginnings of ‘I Started A Joke’).
Barry: “[‘Idea’] was Jagger-influenced. In those
days, of course, everything was either the Stones or The Beatles and everybody wanted to be in that sort of zone. So I think that it was certainly influenced by that. ‘The Earnest Of Being George’ was influenced by them. Sometimes Vince Melouney, because he was a rocker at heart, would influence us. I remember Vince on ‘Idea’, the [sings guitar lick]. It was wanting to do something with more aggression, with more energy. That’s my greatest memory of it, looking for something that was a little more angry, a little more aggressive and that just came out in the studio.”
Friday, June 21, 1968 At IBC Studio A, the band record eleven takes of ‘Men Of Men’ ( featuring Barry giving a recitation) and six passes of a backing track for ‘Maypole Mews’. Although it is later covered by David Garrick on a single issued in February 1969, The Bee Gees’ version remains unfinished and both of today’s performances are heretofore unissued.
Tuesday, June 25, 1968 The Bee Gees record the classic ‘I Started A Joke’, and a further version for ‘Maypole Mews’ (which will be left incomplete without a vocal).
Robin: “‘I Started A Joke’ – the melody was actually heard on the engines of a Viscount Turboprop airplane going over
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