Another out of this world track from the Avengers. This EP (usually called the White Noise EP) came out in 1979. This EP was produced by Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols! That’s why it has that great, Sex Pistols-like “Wall of Sound” feel to it. The Pistols “wall of sound” always sounded similar to Phil Spector’s stuff. Spector after all was the inventor of the “wall of sound” concept.
The lineup on this great EP was as follows:
Penelope Houston – vocals
Greg Ingraham – guitar on “The American in Me”, “Uh Oh!” and “White Nigger”
Brad Kunt – guitar on “Corpus Christi”
Danny Furious – drums
Jimmy Wilsey – bass
I love Brad’s name. Nice touch there Brad!
In 1978, the Avengers and the Nuns opened for the Sex Pistols in their only West Coast appearance in San Fransisco. The Nuns and the Avengers were two of the three famous original SF punk rock bands.
The famous punk rock venue at the time SF was called Mabuhay Gardens. I am not sure if it is still open or not.
Here is a great interview with Danny Furious about his days in the Avengers and afterwards. He describes how the Avengers were originally formed by art school students in SF. Penelope Houston originally wanted to be an actress, and Danny wanted to be a painter. The very earliest LA punk rock scene centered around a band called the Screamers who also grew out of the art school crowd down in LA.
Danny has been living in Sweden for the last 18 years. It’s a great interview! He sounds like a very interesting and cool fellow and it looks like he’s led a very interesting life!
Penelope Houston is the great lead singer for the band. The band broke up almost as soon as it was formed, in 1979. Houston has spent the time from 1980-2006 continuing to be involved in various punk rock and folk rock related music projects in Los Angeles, London and San Fransisco. Her new stuff is quite a bit different, a unique dark sound that blends punk, folk, rock, blues and Americana.
Very few people nowadays have ever heard of this band which was one of the greatest punk bands that ever existed.
Punk 4 life!
Alpha Unit
jacobbauthumley
attend several art colleges through the 1960s, being expelled from several before leaving education entirely in 1971. It was during this time that he began to design clothing, a talent he would later use when he became a boutique owner.[citation needed] He had been attracted to the Situationist movement, particularly King Mob, which promoted absurdist and provocative actions as a way of enacting social change. In 1968 McLaren had tried unsuccessfully to travel to Paris to take part in the demonstrations there. Instead, with Jamie Reid, he took part in a student occupation of Croydon Art School. McLaren would later adopt the movement’s ideas into his promotion for the various pop and rock groups with whom he was soon to involve himself.[ Out of punk During 1976–77, in the midst of the original UK punk movement, bands emerged such as Manchester’s Joy Division, The Fall, and Magazine, Leeds’ Gang of Four, and London’s The Raincoats that became central post-punk figures. Some bands classified as post-punk, such as Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire, had been active well before the punk scene coalesced John Ellis: http://www.mapoflimbo.co.uk/ On December 1, an incident took place that sealed punk rock’s notorious reputation: On Thames Today, an early evening London TV show, Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones was goaded into a verbal altercation by the host, Bill Grundy. Jones called Grundy a “dirty fucker” on live television, triggering a media controversy. Two days later, the Pistols, The Clash, The Damned, and The Heartbreakers set out on the Anarchy Tour, a series of gigs throughout the UK. Many of the shows were cancelled by venue owners in response to the media outrage following the Grundy confrontation.