Biography
Penelope Houston ranks among the most distinctive and wide-ranging presences in Northern California’s music community, functioning as a vocalist and composer whose output remains anchored by a single unwavering trait: an uncompromising authenticity that has shaped recordings spanning punk rock, indie pop, contemporary folk, jazz, and numerous other territories.
Born December 17, 1958, in Los Angeles, California, she passed the greater part of her youth in Seattle, Washington. Raised amid an environment of dedicated music listeners, she gravitated during her teenage years toward British folk-rock acts such as Fairport Convention and the Incredible String Band; with the initial surge of punk in the mid-’70s she also adopted the sharper edges of Lou Reed and Patti Smith. Enrolling at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1977, she formed a close connection with recent alumnus Danny Furious (also known as Danny O’Brien), a drummer whose musical preferences aligned with her own. Furious connected her with guitarist Greg Ingraham, and together with bassist James Wilsey they launched the Avengers, soon recognized as one of the most prominent acts on the San Francisco punk circuit. Greil Marcus characterized them as “San Francisco’s best punk band -- in their moments, they were, you know, better than any other band playing that night anywhere in the world.” The group performed regularly throughout the West Coast, issued the landmark single “We Are the One,” and supported the Sex Pistols at the notorious 1978 Winterland concert in San Francisco, yet internal fractures surfaced within a year and the Avengers disbanded in 1979.
Following the breakup, Houston moved to Los Angeles, where she collaborated with filmmaker and video artist Rene Daalder and appeared in his motion picture Population: One. She subsequently lived for several years in Europe, working with Buzzcocks and Magazine founder Howard Devoto and contributing to his album Jerky Versions of the Dream. Upon resettling in San Francisco she initiated a solo trajectory, turning away from the local punk environment to pursue acoustic material shaped by Tom Waits and the British folk traditions she had long admired. Although her emerging style initially found limited acceptance among either rock listeners or folk traditionalists, the debut solo release, 1988’s Birdboys, received warm critical notice, while the follow-up, 1993’s The Whole World, proved equally compelling and yielded the spirited single “Glad I’m a Girl.” As domestic audiences gradually embraced her work, a stronger following developed in Germany, prompting a partnership with the independent label Normal Records that began with the atmospheric 1994 album Karmal Apple. Subsequent releases of archival material performed sufficiently well for her to secure a contract with WEA’s German division; the Reprise imprint licensed the material for American distribution, resulting in 1996’s Cut You, her first major-label outing. Although that collection centered on refined contemporary folk tinged with jazz and pop, she soon revisited her punk origins. Renewed interest in the Avengers had accumulated steadily, yet the band’s original recordings remained entangled in legal complications. In 1998 Houston, with the approval of her former colleagues, compiled The Avengers Died for Your Sins, incorporating live tracks, studio outtakes, and several previously unheard songs newly recorded by “The Scavengers,” an informal ensemble comprising Houston and Greg Ingraham alongside Joel Reader and Danny “Panic” Sullivan. The Scavengers performed select dates in support of the release, and Houston’s subsequent solo album, Tongue, adopted a more assertive pop-rock approach than her earlier efforts while featuring guitar contributions from Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong. Armstrong also joined her on a fresh recording of the Avengers’ “Corpus Christi,” which surfaced on the Europe-only compilation Eighteen Stories Down issued after her departure from the American label. Not until 2004 did she deliver another solo project, the evocative folk-rock collection The Pale Green Girl, issued domestically by the independent DBK Works imprint, which simultaneously released the further Avengers anthology The American in Me.
After the appearance of The American in Me, Houston and Ingraham reconstituted the Avengers with bassist Joel Reader and drummer Luis Illades, undertaking intermittent tours across the United States and Europe. Following an extended period devoted to personal matters and the resolution of legal barriers surrounding reissues of the original Avengers catalog, she commenced work on fresh solo material in 2011; On Market Street emerged on the European Glitterhouse label in early 2012.
Born December 17, 1958, in Los Angeles, California, she passed the greater part of her youth in Seattle, Washington. Raised amid an environment of dedicated music listeners, she gravitated during her teenage years toward British folk-rock acts such as Fairport Convention and the Incredible String Band; with the initial surge of punk in the mid-’70s she also adopted the sharper edges of Lou Reed and Patti Smith. Enrolling at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1977, she formed a close connection with recent alumnus Danny Furious (also known as Danny O’Brien), a drummer whose musical preferences aligned with her own. Furious connected her with guitarist Greg Ingraham, and together with bassist James Wilsey they launched the Avengers, soon recognized as one of the most prominent acts on the San Francisco punk circuit. Greil Marcus characterized them as “San Francisco’s best punk band -- in their moments, they were, you know, better than any other band playing that night anywhere in the world.” The group performed regularly throughout the West Coast, issued the landmark single “We Are the One,” and supported the Sex Pistols at the notorious 1978 Winterland concert in San Francisco, yet internal fractures surfaced within a year and the Avengers disbanded in 1979.
Following the breakup, Houston moved to Los Angeles, where she collaborated with filmmaker and video artist Rene Daalder and appeared in his motion picture Population: One. She subsequently lived for several years in Europe, working with Buzzcocks and Magazine founder Howard Devoto and contributing to his album Jerky Versions of the Dream. Upon resettling in San Francisco she initiated a solo trajectory, turning away from the local punk environment to pursue acoustic material shaped by Tom Waits and the British folk traditions she had long admired. Although her emerging style initially found limited acceptance among either rock listeners or folk traditionalists, the debut solo release, 1988’s Birdboys, received warm critical notice, while the follow-up, 1993’s The Whole World, proved equally compelling and yielded the spirited single “Glad I’m a Girl.” As domestic audiences gradually embraced her work, a stronger following developed in Germany, prompting a partnership with the independent label Normal Records that began with the atmospheric 1994 album Karmal Apple. Subsequent releases of archival material performed sufficiently well for her to secure a contract with WEA’s German division; the Reprise imprint licensed the material for American distribution, resulting in 1996’s Cut You, her first major-label outing. Although that collection centered on refined contemporary folk tinged with jazz and pop, she soon revisited her punk origins. Renewed interest in the Avengers had accumulated steadily, yet the band’s original recordings remained entangled in legal complications. In 1998 Houston, with the approval of her former colleagues, compiled The Avengers Died for Your Sins, incorporating live tracks, studio outtakes, and several previously unheard songs newly recorded by “The Scavengers,” an informal ensemble comprising Houston and Greg Ingraham alongside Joel Reader and Danny “Panic” Sullivan. The Scavengers performed select dates in support of the release, and Houston’s subsequent solo album, Tongue, adopted a more assertive pop-rock approach than her earlier efforts while featuring guitar contributions from Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong. Armstrong also joined her on a fresh recording of the Avengers’ “Corpus Christi,” which surfaced on the Europe-only compilation Eighteen Stories Down issued after her departure from the American label. Not until 2004 did she deliver another solo project, the evocative folk-rock collection The Pale Green Girl, issued domestically by the independent DBK Works imprint, which simultaneously released the further Avengers anthology The American in Me.
After the appearance of The American in Me, Houston and Ingraham reconstituted the Avengers with bassist Joel Reader and drummer Luis Illades, undertaking intermittent tours across the United States and Europe. Following an extended period devoted to personal matters and the resolution of legal barriers surrounding reissues of the original Avengers catalog, she commenced work on fresh solo material in 2011; On Market Street emerged on the European Glitterhouse label in early 2012.
Albums
