When Penelope Houston takes the stage with the Avengers at San Francisco’s Bottom of the Hill this Saturday, she’ll be fronting a band she helped create in 1977.
“I don’t think I would have predicted this when I was 19,” Houston said. “But here I am, 50 years later, still playing with [guitarist] Greg [Ingraham].”
The Avengers were one of San Francisco’s first woman-fronted punk bands, alongside the Nuns and the Mutants. They stood out due to Houston’s dynamic presence and lyrics addressing the political and social issues of the time. When Houston sang, “What’s your country been doing to you?” in the song “The American in Me,” it struck a chord with her audience and beyond.
Those lyrics still resonate today. “It’s not surprising, but it’s frustrating,” Houston said. “I feel like America’s backsliding. If you look at the songs of Woody Guthrie—they’re old but still relevant. I’m hoping our songs can stay relevant for another few years.”
The Avengers released an EP, We Are the One, on Dangerhouse Records in 1977. It was one of the first recordings of West Coast punk. In January 1978 they opened for the Sex Pistols at Winterland. The Pistols’ lead guitarist, Steve Jones, was so impressed that he produced a recording for them. Songs from that session were finally released as Avengers in 1978, shortly before the band broke up.
Houston was born in Los Angeles and raised in Seattle. She moved to San Francisco to attend the San Francisco Art Institute. When she met Ingraham, she joined the Avengers and began singing and writing songs.
“I studied violin when I was a kid, and sang in a choir, but didn’t think I was particularly musical,” Houston recalled. “When I stood in front of a mic and heard my amplified voice, I fell in love with singing and songwriting. We wrote as a group, and I suddenly realized I was a songwriter.”
When the Avengers broke up, Houston moved to Los Angeles to work with the Screamers, a punk band she’d met in Seattle before coming to San Francisco. They were making a film with Rene Daalder, a Dutch film director, called Population 1. It was released on DVD in 2008.
Soon after that, she went to London to work with Howard Devoto (Buzzcocks, Magazine). “He asked me to supply female vocals to his album, Jerky Versions of the Dream, but he wound up singing most of it himself,” Houston said. “I did get married while I was there, then moved back to San Francisco and began writing songs.”
In 1999, Lookout Records approached the Avengers about releasing an LP. “We gathered up some unreleased recordings and put out The Avengers Died for Your Sins,” Houston said. “We also recorded three old songs and played a record-release party at the Great American Music Hall. I realized how much I loved singing these songs. I could still embody the teenage rebel in me. From that point on, we were invited to play places the band never played, in the U.K., EU and the East Coast.”
During that time, Houston lived in Oakland and worked at the San Francisco Public Library, where she started the SF Punk Archive. Since the late ’80s she’s also pursued a career as a singer/songwriter. She became especially successful in Germany, where she was signed by WEA Germany for a worldwide deal. She released several albums, including Cut You and Tongue. They were released in the U.S. on the Reprise label. She also has three albums on indie labels and two on her own logo.
Houston recently started a band, the Jailbirds, to support her on stage. “It’s a full-electric band,” she said. “We’ve been playing together for a year, and it’s been fun. Since I retired from the library, I’ve been able to focus on making music and doing art. I’ve published two chapbooks: Early Days: A Conversation About Art, Punk & Otherness and egg timer: two dozen poems & a murder ballad. I’ve also written some songs, but not an album’s worth, so I don’t have any plans to go into the studio in the near future.”
She added, “I don’t know how much my songs have changed over the years. They’re a bit more personal. Some politics are still involved, but I’ve evolved as a person, so I’m not going to write any songs from a teenage point of view at this point.”
The Avengers play Saturday, Nov. 14, at 8pm, Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., San Francisco. bottomofthehill.com. Penelope Houston & the Jailbirds play Friday, Nov. 27, at 7:30pm at The Chapel, 777 Valencia St., San Francisco. thechapelsf.com. Houston’s music can be heard online at Penelope.net.
