SF punk legends the Avengers headline Thee Stork Club in Oakland
Pioneering San Francisco punk band the Avengers headline this show at Thee Stork Club Saturday night, sharing the stage with SoCal veterans the Zeros '77.
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 Thee Stork Club in Oakland Saturday, the Avengers will be joined by the Zeros '77, an offshoot of the veteran SoCal Latino punk band that at one point was referred to as "the Mexican Ramones."
Acknowledged as the first punk band to emerge from San Diego as well as the first punk band with Latin roots, the Zeros were part of the first wave of punk groups that surfaced in Southern California's burgeoning scene in the mid-to-late '70s. Co-founding member Robert Lopez was inspired by his early experiences seeing live music as a teen -- Led Zeppelin was his first concert at age 14, though he was far more influenced by his second show headlined by proto-punk icons the New York Dolls. Lopez started playing guitar in the Zeros while attending Chula Vista High School in 1976 with fellow student, guitarist/singer Javier Escovedo, who came from a musical family.
His father played in mariachi bands and his older brothers Pete Escovedo and Thomas "Coke" Escovedo became notable percussionists in the Bay Area, performing with Santana, Malo as well as leading their own bands (Pete's daughter and Javier's niece Sheila E. would also become a Bay Area percussion legend as one of Prince's main collaborators and a solo star). But it was brother Alejandro who exerted the biggest influence on Javier, founding of San Francisco punk band the Nuns (they famously opened for the Sex Pistols at their last show before splitting). He later had success in the bands Rank and File and the True Believers before launching a solo career.
By the following year, the Zeroes were playing Los Angeles with fellow SoCal punk upstarts the Germs and the Weirdos as well as touring acts like Devo, the Damned and SF counterparts the Avengers. The band issued one of the first underground punk singles out of Los Angeles with "Don't Push Me Around" on Bomp! Records, with Lopez penning the B-side of the follow-up 7-inch "Beat Your Heart Out" in 1978.
Later that year, Lopez split from the band, which continued as a trio after a line-up shuffle. The Zeros would relocate to San Francisco and released another single on Test Tube Records in 1980 before the band fizzled out. Lopez eventually ending up as the keyboard player with more experimental punk group Catholic Discipline. That band was featured in the landmark Penelope Spheris documentary The Decline of Western Civilization in 1981.
The Zeros remained dormant through the decade as Alejandro teamed with his brother in Austin, Texas, to form the acclaimed roots-minded rock band the True Believers, who issued one album for EMI and recorded a second record that remained unreleased until after the band split in 1987. Meanwhile Lopez spent much of the '80s focused on art before inventing his satirical tribute character El Vez, the Mexican Elvis, late in the decade.
The Zeros would reunite in 1995 after reissues of early demos rekindled interest in the band. Their first proper album Knockin' Me Dead featured the classic line-up of Escovedo and Lopez with the rhythm section of Hector Penalosa (bass) and Baba Chenelle (drums) with guest appearances by the McDonald brothers from Redd Kross and Kim Shattuck from the Muffs playing a mix of hooky original songs and garage-punk covers.
That version of the band has reunited and toured periodically over the decades since, but this show features the Zeros '77. A separate line-up from the current band led by Escovedo, it started playing live earlier this year and features Lopez and Penalosa with Lopez's cousin Adam Remmers on guitar and the powerhouse drummer of the Schizophonics, Lety Beers, bashing out the group's classic tunes. Johnny Maraca and the Marockers open the show.
The Avengers with the Zeros '77 and Johnny Maraca and the Marockers
Saturday, Dec. 7, 8 p.m. $25-$30
Thee Stork Club
