The Music Asylum - I Need Someone (The Painter)/ Yesterday's Children

Leka and Pinz penned pop for future proggers

Label: Ascot

Year of Release: 1968

Paul Leka and Shelley Pinz's biggest songwriting hit is probably "Green Tambourine" by the Lemon Pipers. While that particular song was regarded by some as being the "first bubblegum record", it was a stranger beast than that lazy tag might suggest - overloaded with psychedelic effects, sitar sounds and the strangest comedown of finishes (you would have thought the magic of the green tambourine would have amounted to more than some thumping and banging noises, but that's life, and I suppose the song was inspired by a beggar) it's hardly "Sugar Sugar". It instead sits neatly on the crossroads where psychedelia and pop often met, in common with a lot of singles of that era.

Besides "Green Tambourine", Leka also worked on multiple other records, some familiar ("Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye", "Falling Sugar") and inevitably, some which never quite broke out of the lower leagues of regional American popularity. "I Need Someone (The Painter)" is an example of a Leka flop, and it has the same rich, ambitious production and arrangement you'd expect, with that zinging sitar meeting bright keyboard lines before suddenly and quite unexpectedly dropping into a blissful, frail dreamboat of a chorus when you least expect it. It's deliberately flowery and fey, which makes me suspect the band behind it would possibly rather it were forgotten.

The Music Asylum consisted of Leonard Argese, Leonard Conforti, Louis Argesi and Louis Luzzi and re-emerged again in 1970 with a heavier, eclectic prog LP entitled "Commit Thyself" on the United Artists label, which bore only a few hints of their earlier 45's jaunt in the midnight garden. This wasn't uncommon practice at the time - the UK in particular is littered with 60s popsike obscurities from future 70s prog giants - but the about turn certainly seems rapid by current day standards of musical progression. They also shared aspirations with the Lemon Pipers who were also desperate to show their progressive side across their long players. 

Leka himself also moved on eventually, taking on production duties for REO Speedwagon and opening his own studio called Connecticut Recording. Sadly, he died in 2011 of lung cancer. 

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