Buick MacKane – End

A few weeks ago I covered an artist named Alejandro Escovedo, a Texas singer-songwriter who has been around since the early seventies. I’ve recently listened to the album The Pawn Shop Years and it’s fantastic. The band was named after the T. Rex song Buick MacKane and I see the similarities.

They formed in 1989 and began recording songs for the album that would be released in 1997. They mostly played around Austin and they were a mix between garage and glam rock…and it sounds great. Escovedo had just broken up with his band The True Believers when all of this happened. They were popular in Austin and they had some trouble with people accepting Buick MacKane because they thought it would be The True Believers part two.

If you want to hear a 1990s rock album that sounds like the early seventies…this is the one. Instead of checking out a few songs…check out the album. I’ve posted two songs by them to give you a hint. These guys are not going to give you lush ballads…every song is turned up to 11. They use feedback in many of the songs and it’s so refreshing to hear that. I missed these guys in the 90s but…better late than never.

My only disappointment with this band is that they didn’t make any more albums. I’ve never messed with Spotify much but I thought I would post a link to their album at the bottom.

Rick Reger, Chicago Tribune: “A part-time project recorded over three years by musicians who passionately care about the fact that they’re having a great time in the process, ‘The Pawn Shop Years’ comes, conquers and destroys with far more devastating effect than many a self-important hard rock band purporting to do this for a living.”

Sorry…I could not find the lyrics.

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

29 thoughts on “Buick MacKane – End”

  1. I’ll check these guys out on Apple. Crazy to record an album and it not released until 8 years later. Look at the shift of the music scene between those years.

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    1. That riff did the same to me obbverse. I know why they got their name from them….listening to the T Rex song…they got that same sound on guitar.

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    1. I posted on Alejandro Escovedo three weeks back or so…but he had a lot of good music. Peter Buck played in his band a few years ago…cool guy to check out.

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      1. Sorry I eluding to Spotify’s treatment of the lesser known artists and cutting off the songs that don’t reach a certain play count. So someone like this I would have thought they would be forced to find another platform. I use Spotify all the time but I’m frustrated at how they treat and under pay artists.

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      2. Oh I know what you were talking about Randy…I noticed on this album…all the songs were hit around 4 thousand times…but the song “End” had like 21,000 hits…I never noticed that feature….thats how little I use it.

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      1. Oh wow this is new…and very good. I didn’t know much about him until a few weeks ago when CB sent me a link to a few of his songs and this side project.

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  7. I wont wax on Max on how much I dig this guy and his music (did I say that in a past comment?). Alejandro gets a lot of time on my music machine. You dug up some gems here fella. ‘Shoe Head’ is a CB fave. Keep spreading the word. I know you will.

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  9. I finally listened to most of the Buick MacKane album in the car last evening while returning from a Steely Dan tribute show. It sounds really great and, as such, it’s definitely a pity no additional music from them has been released.

    Based on Alejandro Escovedo’s solo discography in Wikipedia, it appears he pretty quickly resumed his solo career after the recording sessions with Buick MacKane, which according to the album info on Apple Music started in 1993 and I assume finished sometime in 1994.

    Escovedo’s third solo album came out in 1996 on the same label that eventually released the Buick MacKane album in 1997.

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    1. What got me about it is that most of the songs are both good and catchy at the same time. They were basically and one and done band but they made good on it.

      I do wish they would have done more…many of them sound like radio friendly songs… it could have been played on radio easily.

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      1. While short-lived bands aren’t unheard of, I still wonder what happened. Perhaps the label had something to do with it. It strikes me the recording sessions apparently occurred in 1993 and 1994, yet no album was released until Feb 1997!

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