The Avengers was a San Francisco-based punk band active during the first wave of American punk in the late 70s and early 80s. Penelope Houston, lead singer for the band, was born in Los Angeles and raised in Seattle. In the mid-1970s she attended Fairhaven College in Bellingham, Washington before heading to San Francisco in 1977 to attend the San Francisco Art Institute. It was there that she met her future bandmates and took on the duties of singer and songwriter for the Avengers. The complete original line-up included Penelope on vocals, James Wilsey on bass, D. Furious on drums and Greg Ingraham on guitar.

From June 1977 to June 1979, The Avengers played just over 100 shows, appearing with the Sex Pistols at Winterland for that group's legendary last show. The band's debut three-song EP was issued on Dangerhouse Records in 1977 and a four-song EP, produced by Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, was released in 1979 on White Noise Records. In 1983 band members posthumously gathered together various recordings and put out a full length self-titled LP (the pink album) which has long since gone out of print and into legal limbo.

In 1999, a compilation of unreleased tracks and outtakes called "The Avengers Died for Your Sins" was issued by Lookout! Records. The CD "The American in Me" was released in 2004 and includes four studio tracks and eight live tracks recorded at the Old Waldorf in 1979.

With the release of the recent CD, vocalist Penelope Houston has joined with original guitarist Greg Ingraham to bring the Avengers back to life, completing the line-up with bassist Joel Reader (The Mr. T Experience, The Plus Ones) and drummer Luis Illades (Pansy Division, The Plus Ones). The new group is sometimes also called the scAvengers.

links:
The Avengers on myspace
Penelope Houston / The Avengers official website