SF punk legends the Avengers headline the Ivy Room in Albany
Pioneering San Francisco punk band the Avengers headline this show at the Ivy Room Wednesday, a night before supporting the Damned at the Regency Ballroom.
They were only around for a couple of years during their initial existence, yet the Avengers have managed to influence legions of punk disciples. Founding guitarist Greg Ingraham and drummer Danny Furious -- aka Danny O'Brien -- started the band in 1977, inviting charismatic lead singer Penelope Houston to join the group (bassist Jimmy Wilsey filled out the quartet).
The band's debut three-song EP We Are the One showed off Houston's ferocious vocal style and Ingraham's fiery riffs. The Avengers opened for the Sex Pistols at the group's notorious final show at San Francisco's Winterland, a gig that led to Pistols guitarist Steve Jones producing a recording session, but the departure of Ingraham in early 1979 was the beginning of the end. The quartet had split up a few months later prior to the release of their second self-titled EP drawn from the sessions with Jones.
The posthumous Avengers compilation in 1983 would further spread the legend of the band's potent punk songwriting. Houston would reinvent herself as an acoustic singer/songwriter, but the release of the new collection Died for Your Sins by Lookout Records in 1999 led to the Houston and Ingraham putting together a new line-up with bassist Joel Reader and drummer Luis Illades. That version of the group has been playing regularly since 2004, including a tour with Irish punk band Stiff Little Fingers in 2019 that took the Avengers to parts of the U.S. the quartet had never played before. Two years ago, the Avengers opened the first ever punk show at Stern Grove, providing support for LA greats X.
For this show at the Ivy Room in Albany Wednesday, the Avengers will be joined Middle-Aged Queers -- a Bay Area supergroup of seasoned punks featuring ex-members of the Cost, Fang, the Insaints and the Shondes on a mission to make punk rock gay again -- and melodic SF punk trio Tess and the Details.
The Avengers with Middle-Aged Queers and Tess and the Details
Wednesday, June 5, 7 p.m. $20-$24
The Ivy Room