SpaceAce Sunday | Buffalo Springfield (1966, Canada/US)

Our next Self-Titled Summer spotlight is on number 1054 on The List. And, as it was submitted by our dear friend J aka SpaceAce, this is technically a SpaceAce Sunday. Why not on a Sunday? Well. Today is a year since he left us. A whole year. Makes no sense at all.

As for this album, I somehow did not know Buffalo Springfield was a Neil Young band or that they’re the ones responsible for the fantastic protest single “For What It’s Worth”, a song I’ve always absolutely loved. As soon as I pressed play on this album and heard the first few notes of that song, I literally smiled and thanked J out loud.

Thanks, J. Love that I’m still learning from you.

You are still very much missed. 💜

Want to read more? See the full spotlight on the Fediverse at @1001otheralbums.com or on the blog: https://1001otheralbums.com/2025/07/09/self-titled-spaceace-buffalo-springfield-1966-canada-us/

Want to skip straight to the music? Here's a Songlink: https://album.link/i/265611980

#BuffaloSpringfield #NeilYoung #CountryRock #PsychedelicRock #FolkRock #1960s #selftitled #music #SpaceAceSunday #1001OtherAlbums

SpaceAce Sunday | Buffalo Springfield (1966, Canada/US)

Our next Self-Titled Summer spotlight is on number 1054 on The List. And, as it was submitted by our dear friend J aka SpaceAce, this is technically a SpaceAce Sunday. Why not on a Sunday? Well. Today is a year since he left us. A whole year. Makes no sense at all.

I knew I wouldn’t want to write this post so, after noticing that the next submission from J was a s/t, I started the whole Self-Titled Summer series to psych myself up. That didn’t work though, as I wrote the last STS post a couple weeks ago and have been stalled on this since. I even did a full listen-through of Carly Rae Jepsen’s entire discography to see if that would help (J was a HUGE Carly fan). But it didn’t.

So, if you don’t mind, rather than giving this album – Buffalo Springfield’s debut – the regular STS treatment, I’m just going to leave it at a few random thoughts I had when I gave it my first listen, just over a month ago, and imagine what J would have to say about it.

• Seems like the perfect SpaceAce pick to land on today, given J’s origins were also Canada/US.
• I did not know Buffalo Springfield was a Neil Young band or that they’re the ones responsible for the fantastic protest single “For What It’s Worth”, a song I’ve always absolutely loved. As soon as I pressed play on this album and heard the first few notes of that song, I literally smiled and thanked J out loud.
• There are variances in the tracklists, depending on what version/medium you’re listening to. Only some include “For What It’s Worth” (recorded after the album was first released, then added for the reissue a few months later), either as the first track or somewhere on side B; “Leave” seems to be on different sides depending on the variant; and “Baby Don’t Scold Me” is missing completely from some variants and streaming services (swapped out for “For What It’s Worth”).
• Aside from “For What It’s Worth”, the other stand out track for me is “Out of My Mind”, with Neil Young on main vocals.

Thanks, J. Love that I’m still learning from you.

You are still very much missed.

• Songlink: Buffalo Springfield – Buffalo Springfield
• Discogs: Buffalo Springfield – Buffalo Springfield

#1960s #BuffaloSpringfield #countryRock #folkRock #music #musicDiscovery #NeilYoung #psychedelicRock #selftitled #SpaceAceSunday

SpaceAce Sunday | Julie London with The Bud Shank Quintet – All Through The Night: Julie London Sings the Choicest of Cole Porter (1965, US)

The next album submitted to the project by SpaceAce aka J, our dearly missed friend, is number 1052 on The List.

This is pin-up model-turned actress-turned singer Julie London’s 24th of 29 studio albums. J had a handful of Julie’s albums, so it’s not a bad idea to listen to another one or two of her albums after this one. Not bad at all.

Want to read more? See the full spotlight: https://1001otheralbums.com/2025/03/30/spaceace-sunday-julie-london-with-the-bud-shank-quintet-all-through-the-night-julie-london-sings-the-choicest-of-cole-porter-1965-us/

Want to skip straight to the music? Here's a Songlink: https://album.link/ca/i/716276170

Thanks, J. 🙏

#JulieLondon #BudShank #ColePorter #jazz #VocalJazz #CoolJazz #1960s #SpaceAceSunday #music #1001OtherAlbums

SpaceAce Sunday | The Shangri-Las – Golden Hits of The Shangri-Las (1966, US)

The next album SpaceAce – aka J, our dearly missed friend – submitted to the project is number 1051 on The List.

As previously mentioned in a previous SpaceAce Sunday spotlight, the last few albums J submitted are all from 1966, due to me pointing out that we had no albums from that year on The List at that point and wondering what was up with that. So, that explains why this compilation is here…or does it? While The Shangri-Las did have a couple studio albums (both released in 1965), the name of the game at that time in American pop music was more about hit singles, so I wonder if this compilation – released while the band was still at the height of their popularity – was perhaps their most popular album. I mean, I’m totally guessing here without J’s insight, but I find it curious that this compilation has a volume in the excellent 33 1/3 book series. As far as I know, there aren’t other compilations given the 33 1/3 treatment (other than a soundtrack and a tribute album), so it seems like this one is a special case?

Anyway, I digress! …but, also, now I really want to read the 33 1/3 book, by Ada Wolin. I mean, here’s the blurb on it – don’t you want to read it now too?

Of the many girl-groups that came out of the 1960s, none is more idiosyncratic and influential than the Shangri-Las. They were together only five years, but within that time they subverted pop standards and foreshadowed a generation of tough women in music. Critically, they are not lauded in the way of the Ronettes, and they are certainly not a household name like the Supremes. They were a little too low-brow with an uncouth flair for theatrics that has placed them just left of the girl-group canon.

This book examines the still-elusive validation of 1960s girl-groups as a whole, but also paradoxically aims to free the Shangri-Las from that category, viewing them instead with the sort of individuality traditionally afforded to rock groups. They were somehow able to challenge the status quo under the guise of sticky-sweet pop, a feat not many pop groups can achieve, but which they do fleetingly but not insubstantially in Golden Hits of the Shangri-Las.

For every other 1001 Other Albums spotlight, I’ve listened to the album at least once, either prior to posting or the day of. But, full disclosure: I haven’t yet listened to this album in its entirety because I kind of want to read this book beforehand. The description of The Shangri-Las having a “tough girl” persona doesn’t compute with the bubblegum album cover and the couple of tracks I have heard – and they’re cited as influencing a lot of musicians I respect (e.g., Kim Gordon, Kathleen Hanna, Amy Winehouse) – so I sort of want some context first. Am I overthinking it? Yep! But that’s what I do.

Anyway, thanks J for adding another book to be TBR pile, I’m rather looking forward to listening to this one.

• I can’t find a Songlink for this one, so either try the YT link, or check out the 1996 compilation linked below which has all of the same songs (in a different order) plus a couple extras:
  • Youtube: The Shangri-Las – Golden Hits of The Shangri-Las
  • Songlink: The Shangri-Las – The Best of the Shangri-Las
• Discogs: The Shangri-Las – Golden Hits of The Shangri-Las

#1001OtherAlbums #1960s #ListenToThis #music #musicDiscovery #Musodon #popMusic #SpaceAceSunday #TheShangriLas

#RecordOfTheDay

Neil Young - Comes a Time

Got this last Friday at my local, Turn It Up! Brattleboro #Vermont. I’d been keeping an eye out for this since J left this comment on my post on the blog about Harvest Moon.

I miss these sorts of casual insights that J used to drop. #SpaceAceSunday

#vinyl #vinylCollection

Frost and Fire, Part 1 – SpaceAce Sunday Edition

When I sat down to search for a streaming link for our next SpaceAce Sunday, I realized that we, in fact, have two albums on The List with the title Frost and Fire: The Watersons’ 1965 folk debut, and Cirith Ungol’s 1981 proto-doom/heavy metal debut. Given that (a) The Watersons’ album contains a few Xmas/Xmas-adjacent songs, and (b) I, like many of you, am rather ambivalent towards the holiday season at best, I wanted to offer up both albums at this time of year as if they were both Xmas albums, even if one is only partially an Xmas album and the other can essentially only be considered an Xmas album due to proximity, or, say, in the sense that Die Hard is an Xmas movie because it takes place on December 24.[1] In doing so, we can each choose for ourselves what level of holiday music we want to expose our ears to. And, because SpaceAce Sundays are clearly limited to Sundays, we will first spotlight SpaceAce’s Frost and Fire, i.e., The Watersons’ album, and then, on December 24, we will spotlight Cirith Ungol’s take on the title.

The Watersons – Frost and Fire (A Calendar of Ritual and Magical Songs)[3] (1965, UK)

And so, today we go back to one of the first albums SpaceAce submitted to this project, number 481 in The List.

I think it’s fair to say that SpaceAce must’ve loved this band/family, seeing as this is the third album of theirs we’re looking at thanks to him. As noted in the liner notes by A. L. Lloyd[2] (who we met in a previous SpaceAce Sunday), this album collects traditional ceremonial songs, not just from around the winter solstice but from each season:

Seasons of anxiety, seasons of joy. The common people had their rites of propitiation and triumph, older than the rituals of the Church and closer bound to their daily lives. This record takes us through a year’s calendar, displaying songs that accompanied these ceremonies, season by season…

When the Christian church arose, it ranged itself against the beliefs and customs of the old nature worship, and prudently annexed many of the seasonal ceremonies. Thus the critical time of the winter solstice, a rich period for pagan ritual, became the season of the Nativity of the new god. The season of the great spring ceremonies became the time of his slaughter and resurrection. So it happens that in many songs on this record pagan and Christian elements are inextricably tangled…it’s necessary to recall that behind most of these calendar customs and the songs attached to them lies nothing more mysterious, nothing less realistic, than the yearly round of work carried out in the fields…For it’s due to their relation with economic life, not to any mystical connection, that the song-customs have persisted right up to our own time.

That’s the sort of Xmas songs I can get behind.

In memory of our dearly missed friend, let’s raise a glass and, if you wish to listen to this Frost and Fire, let’s take a listen together. Otherwise, let’s meet back here Tuesday for a more metal take.

• Songlink: The Watersons – Frost and Fire (A Calendar of Ritual and Magical Songs)
• Discogs: The Watersons – Frost and Fire (A Calendar of Ritual and Magical Songs)

[1]To be clear, Die Hard is most definitely an Xmas movie. I will not be taking any questions at this time.
[2]The liner notes are reproduced in full here.
[3]Note the cover of the US pressing that I’ve included here doesn’t include the subtitle found on the original UK cover, but this one is so much cooler looking (and, I believe, is the version SpaceAce owned).

#1001OtherAlbums #1960s #BritishFolk #ChristmasMusic #folk #folkMusic #holidayMusic #ListenToThis #music #musicDiscovery #Musodon #SpaceAceSunday #TheWatersons

SpaceAce Sunday | The Watersons – The Watersons (1966, UK)

The next album our dearly missed friend submitted to the project is number 1050 on The List.

I forgot to explain in our last SpaceAce Sunday that that album marked the first of the last group of SpaceAce’s contributions. From there until we reach the end of our SpaceAce Sundays (with the exception of next week), you may notice that each album was released in 1966. This isn’t an odd coincidence. When I had finished indexing the entirety of The List, I discovered something odd: of the roughly 1035 albums we had gathered up to that point, none of them had been released in 1966, the only entry for that year being a compilation that included some singles released in ’66. Granted, there was also no albums for 1962 (again, just a compilation with some ’62 singles) and then one or none for any year earlier than 1955, but the bare spot for 1966 seemed to really stand out to me, given the number of albums we had in the few years before and after.

And so, me being me, I tooted “was no one pressing records in 1966?”…and some lovely Mastodonians promptly provided evidence that, in fact, ALL of the records were pressed in 1966, lol, and we ended up adding 16 albums from that year to The List. SpaceAce is responsible for most of those, as he took a look at his gigantic vinyl collection on Discogs, sorted by year, and made a list of 10 albums from 1966 that were worthy of The List.

And so, here we are. If The Watersons sounds familiar in this context, it’s because we’ve already had a SpaceAce Sunday looking at this family, in particular the duo of siblings Lal and Mike. As mentioned in that previous spotlight, The Watersons consisted of Lal (or Elaine, as billed on the cover of this album) and Mike, their other sibling Norma, and cousin John Harrison. The album here is their second. Next weekend we’ll be taking a look at their previous album from 1965, the first album in fact that SpaceAce had contributed to The List – it’s a holiday-ish affair, so we had saved it for the holiday season. That said, for me at least, the a cappella tunes on this album already remind me of Christmas carols, so guess I’m getting an early start.

Happy listening, all. And thank you, J.

• Songlink: The Watersons – Early Days
  • Note: I can’t find a streaming link to just the 1966 album, but it is included in its entirety (and with tracks in the same order) in this 1994 compilation (tracks 7 to 17) that also features the same cover photo.
• This Die or DIY blog post has a download link (.rar format), if you’re into that sort of thing.
• Discogs: The Watersons – The Watersons

#1001OtherAlbums #1960s #BritishFolk #folkMusic #ListenToThis #music #musicDiscovery #Musodon #SpaceAceSunday #TheWatersons

SpaceAce Sunday | Jacques Dutronc – Jacques Dutronc (1966, France)

The next album our dearly missed friend submitted to the project is number 1047 on The List.

As mentioned in our spotlight last week on Mission of Burma, I recently started a new listening project of going through entire discographies (well, studio albums) of artists, particularly those other Mastodonians have recommended. After Mission of Burma I went through Roxy Music’s discography, and then, as I was craving a different vibe from either of those two bands and wanted to listen to someone I wasn’t familiar with at all, I decided to start in on Françoise Hardy’s studio albums. All 32 of them. Wowzers. After listening to about 10 albums (and falling in love with Hardy), I started reading the Wikipedia entries on Hardy and each album, and realized that she had been married to Jacques Dutronc, whose self-titled 1966 album just happened to be our next SpaceAce pick. Funny how things go.

So, Jacques Dutronc, husband of Françoise Hardy. I would so have loved if SpaceAce had written this spotlight, I’d have loved to hear what he had to say about this dynamic duo. Like, the two met the year after this album, Dutronc’s first of many, came out, and Hardy was already 8 or 9 albums in. Can you imagine the amount of music flowing through that house?

Anyway, we’ll revisit Hardy in another spotlight as we have her self-titled 1971 album on The List. For now, I hope you’ll give this album a spin because it is fucking fantastic. Like Hardy, Dutronc was an important figure in the yé-yé movement, with this album being in the beat/garage rock genres (I think?), with maybe a touch of mod (think Bob Dylan meets the Beatles, but, you know, in French), plus whatever wonderful nonsense is going on in the second-last track “La compapade”. So nice, I listened to it twice.

Thanks, dear SpaceAce, for leading us towards such a great rabbit hole. I may even figure out what exactly yé-yé is soon.

• Songlink: Jacques Dutronc – Jacques Dutronc
  • Note on the album title: Similar to Hardy’s albums, the majority of Dutronc’s albums were released being self-titled, and then came to be known under the title of one of the singles or most popular songs on the album. This one might be titled Et moi, et moi, et moi (as the Songlink has it), Les play boys, or Les Cactus, depending on where you get your albums from.
• Discogs: Jacques Dutronc – Jacques Dutronc

#1001OtherAlbums #1960s #FrançoiseHardy #France #FrenchRock #garageRock #JacquesDutronc #ListenToThis #music #musicDiscovery #Musodon #SpaceAceSunday #YéYé