Penelope Houston
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Penelope Houston (born December 17, 1958 in Los Angeles, California) is an American singer-songwriter and singer for the San Francisco-based punk rock band The Avengers. She was born in L.A. and raised in Seattle. In the mid-1970s she attended Fairhaven College in Bellingham, Washington.[citation needed] In 1977, Houston moved to San Francisco, attended the San Francisco Art Institute and shortly thereafter became the lead singer and songwriter for the Avengers. The Avengers released only one posthumous album, their eponymous debut in 1983. The album is now out of print, although two retrospective collections have been released.
Following the group's demise in 1979, Houston moved first to Los Angeles to work in film and video with The Screamers and director Rene Daalder, then to England where she collaborated with Howard Devoto on his post-Magazine projects. In the mid 1980's, she returned to San Francisco and helped originate the west coast neo-folk movement. By 1996 she had toured Europe extensively, signed with WEA Germany (Warner Brothers) and earned numerous awards with the dozen albums, which blended influences of punk, folk, rock, blues and Americana into her dark unique acoustic sound.
Her first full-length album was Birdboys which came out in 1987. Her most recent album is 2004's The Pale Green Girl.
Shortly after the release of Pale Green Girl, Houston and original guitarist Greg Ingraham recreated the Avengers, adding bassist Joel Reader (formerly of The Mr. T Experience, and the Plus Ones) and drummer Luis Illades (of Pansy Division, formally also of the Plus Ones) to round out the lineup. Since the spring of 2004 she has toured the U.S. and Europe with this lineup. She continues to play her solo material, mainly in the San Francisco area.
[edit] Discography
| Title | Year | Notes | Label |
|---|---|---|---|
| Birdboys | 1988 | Acoustic album | Subterranean Records |
| The Whole World | 1993 | Heyday Records | |
| Silk Purse | 1993 | Return to Sender | |
| Karmal Apple | 1994 | Normal Records | |
| Crazy Baby | 1994 | Return to Sender | |
| Cut You | 1996 | WEA Records | |
| Tongue | 1998 | WEA Records | |
| Once In A Blue Moon | 2000 | Compilation/demos | penelope.net records |
| Loners, Stoners, and Prison Brides | 2001 | Live album | Return To Sender |
| Eighteen Stories Down | 2003 | Best Of | WEA Records |
| The Pale Green Girl | 2004 | DBKWorks |
