Penelope Houston
By Alex Teitz
Penelope Houston has performed many different genres and done many things in her twenty years of being a musician. Houston, raised in Seattle, she first made headlines when she became the lead singer of the punk band The Avengers. The Avengers played with the Sex Pistols and the Dead Kennedys.
In the early 90’s Houston took a different turn. She came to San Francisco and started playing an acoustic based neo-folk. In 1996 she was signed with Reprise where she did two albums, Cut You, and 1999’s Tongue.
Now Houston is taking another turn and started her own label and webstore. Houston’s evolution has been amazing. Watch her new project, and join her at https://penelope.net
FEMMUSIC: Describe your songwriting process. How do you come up with your songs?
PH: Most of the time I write the lyrics first and then the melody and chords or I co-write the music. This is how I wrote all the songs on Tongue and how I prefer to work. A lot of my lyrics are personal and some inspired by thing I see or read about. For instance, Hundertwasser 567, was a painting (by Austrian painter Hundertwasser) hanging in a hotel room on a German tour in 1996 and I imagined it was of a man who owned a slaughterhouse and the karmic repercussions of that. But the painting is pretty abstract.
FEMMUSIC: Who have been your major influences? Do you have any modern (1990’s) influences?
PH: Patti Smith, Leonard Cohen, punk, folk (early influences were Pentangle, Fairport, Incredible String Band and Mose Allison) Not a lot from the 1990’s.
FEMMUSIC: You’ve developed a style over time. Tell me what is different about you and your music now vs. when you still had the Avengers?
PH: Now, I write more of the music. With the Avengers someone would come up with a chord progression and I have to write over that, which begins as screaming, as we were so loud. It’s hard to focus on lyrics when you work from that direction. In changing to quieter songwriting methods I find the lyrics are in the forefront. In almost every live set of the Avengers, there was 1 or 2 songs called “New Song” because I hadn’t figured anything out for these chord progressions yet!
FEMMUSIC: What was your best experience in making TONGUE?
PH: Probably writing it. I worked with new co-writers (Pat Johnson, Charlotte Caffey and Jane Wiedlin, and Chuck Prophet) I’d been working with the same band for years and changing my writing method was very freeing. I also love singing in the studio. We worked Monday – Friday at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley and I loved spending that much time immersed in music.
FEMMUSIC: Do you have a favorite song from TONGUE? Why?
PH: Ouch, that’s hard. “Worm” is my favorite to perform, it’s very cathartic. But I’d have to say “The Ballad Of Happy Friday And Tiger Woods” is my favorite on the record. The story is about someone outside of myself and the beautiful string parts written by Steven Strauss fill it out to almost epic proportions.
FEMMUSIC: As a woman in the music industry, have you faced any discrimination?
PH: As a songwriter (or instrumentalist) you have to prove yourself more. As a singer not too much.
FEMMUSIC: What would you like to see changed most about the music industry? Why?
PH: I think there needs to be better coverage of different kinds of music and different sizes of labels. As the majors converge into a handful of Mega-labels and get bought up by media giants, the chances of most people being exposed to independent artists, grows smaller and smaller. Thank God for the internet, where people can find thousands of musicians who are not on the majors. More diversity can only be good.
FEMMUSIC: Tell me about the band you’re working with now? Where did you find them?
PH: I love working in a band that’s 3/4 female! All of my bandmates were introduced to me through my producer Jeffrey Wood. Michael Papenburg plays electric and acoustic guitar; He used to be in an SF band called Lilyvolt. Katharine Chase plays bass and sings back-up, plus she plays acoustic guitar when I’m doing acoustic sets, and Dawn Richardson (formally in 4 Non-Blonds) plays drums and loops. Katharine and Dawn have a fab all girl glitter rock trio called Kindness.
FEMMUSIC: What are your plans for the next millennium?
PH: I’ve just started my own label called penelope.net records and our first release is coming out March 14th, 2000. Once In A Blue Moon is a collection of rarities from my out of print European CDs “Silk Purse” and “Crazy Baby” with an extra 6 songs never before released. I’m also starting the “Glad I’m A Girl” webstore at http://penelope.net/ where people can find all of my releases and some Avengers stuff, plus CD’s by many of my favorite independent female artists! Some of the artists I plan to carry are: Beth Custer, Ani Difranco, Ex-Girl, Le Tigre, The Muffs, Bonfire Madigan, The Donnas, Barbara Manning, Bratmobile, Lois, Virginia Dare, Kindness, Sleater Kinney, Jean Caffeine, Kathleen Hanna and whoever else catches my ear. The webstore should be up sometime in mid March as well.
FEMMUSIC: What advice would you give to an emerging artist?
PH: Write your own songs, and publish them yourself. If you can afford to, record your music and license it to a label, rather than signing with someone who is going to own those tapes forever. Try to retain control of your recordings and publishing. I really regret having the Avengers recordings, basically stolen from me many years ago.
FEMMUSIC: What else would you like to say?
PH: I’d love for your readers to visit my site and give me input into what independent female artists they’d like to see in the “Glad I’m A Girl” store.