Virtual Album Haul #1

 

### **1. The Sherbs – *I Have the Skill (1980)***  
This is what happens when a half-forgotten Australian prog-pop outfit (Sherbet) decides to reinvent itself for the neon-drenched, leather-clad dawn of the ‘80s. It’s desperate, ambitious, and gleefully ridiculous. The title track lunges at you like an arcade machine wired straight to the brain of a delusional action hero, all chugging guitars and synth fanfares. “Crazy in the Night” is a fever dream of FM radio hysteria, like Cheap Trick locked in a room with the Alan Parsons Project and forced to arm-wrestle for their lives. *Never Surrender*? Damn right. They play this like their careers depend on it—because they did.  

### **2. John Cale – *Fear (1974)***  
Cale is the dark wizard of rock and roll, a fallen aristocrat lurching through the wreckage of dreams with a pocket full of knives. *Fear* is a paranoia symphony, half-beautiful, half-terrifying. “Fear Is a Man’s Best Friend” lurches from cabaret dread into psychotic meltdown—like a slow knife fight with your own reflection. “Buffalo Ballet” croons and shimmers, a lullaby for ghost towns. But then there’s “Gun”—a death march through the streets of your own bad decisions, a song that sounds like a shotgun shell spinning in the chamber. Cale isn’t here to comfort you. He’s here to remind you that even the soft moments are just preludes to horror.   

### **3. David Johansen – Here Comes the Night (1980)

If Johansen’s solo debut was the sound of a rock ‘n’ roll hustler strutting out of the rubble of the Dolls with a smirk and a wink, Here Comes the Night is that same hustler realizing the ‘80s are here and he better either shape up or go broke trying. This is Johansen in full-on barroom philosopher mode, slinging Springsteenian anthems and soulful strut with the confidence of a guy who’s seen it all and lived to tell the tale.

4. Dan Lacksman – Dan Lacksman (1973)

What if Kraftwerk got drunk on cheap wine and decided to jam with Serge Gainsbourg? This is what you’d get—electronic music before it learned to be cold, a feverish blend of analog dreams and lounge lizard charm. “Monday Morning” sounds like a robot learning how to feel hungover. “Jet Set Woman” shuffles with a kitschy swagger, the kind of track you’d hear in a forgotten Euro spy movie while a polyester-clad assassin sizes up his next target. Lacksman wasn’t just playing with synthesizers—he was romancing them, whispering sweet nothings into their circuits before sending them off into the cosmos.


### **Final Verdict:**  
This haul is a madman’s jukebox, a Frankenstein monster of New Wave, proto-punk, glam wreckage, and electronic delirium. It’s music for the weirdos, the dreamers, the burnouts who refuse to burn out. Play it loud, and don’t look back.

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