The Avengers

This is my first post on here in over 6 months. I'm sincerely sorry about that. If you wanna see most of what I've written since then, you can go here. I'd been focusing so much on my Big Takeover column that I've been neglecting this space. Also, I recently moved to Philadelphia, which took up a lot of time as well, as you can well imagine. Now that I'm all settled in, however, I've decided to re-activate this space. I think I'll mostly be posting mp3s of rare and hard to find albums as well as teasers of new and up-and-coming albums. I'm in the process of importing most of my CDs into iTunes and as I've been doing it, it occurred to me that I have some hard-to-find and out of print stuff that I'd like to share with you all.

Anyway, with all that said, my first post in this series is about the late '70s San Francisco punk band The Avengers. Ever since I first heard them when I was 16 (back in those pre-internet days when I used to trade tapes with other punk and hardcore fans across the country and the world), I've considered them one of the finest punk bands ever. Penelope Houston's forceful yet melodic vocals matched Greg Ingraham's slashing guitar power and the superb rhythm section of bassist James Wilsey and drummer Danny Furious to create sonic masterpieces like "We Are the One," "Thin White Line," "Car Crash", "The American in Me" and "Corpus Christi". In the late '90s, Penelope and Greg reunited to play shows and re-record some old songs from the '70s that never saw the light of day for one reason or another with a different rhythm section. These 2 songs, however, are from the self-titled album (really a compilation of singles and other odds and ends from their original incarnation) that was released on the CD Presents label in 1983. Although this is some of the finest punk rock I've ever heard, legal issues have prevented it from being reissued and it languishes out-of-print while going for obscene amounts of money on ebay, Amazon and what not. Since I'm lucky enough to own a copy, I thought I'd share a few songs with you. If you like what you hear, you can buy a digitally remastered CD directly from Penelope here. Furthermore, The Avengers are mounting a rare U.S. tour in the fall which includes a date here in Philadelphia at the First Unitarian Church. I can't wait!

The Avengers - "We Are the One"
The Avengers - "Car Crash"

Enjoy!