The American in Me Album

 

 

The Avengers album that I have, The American in Me features four tracks that were produced by Steve Jones of Sex Pistols in late 1978.  The remainder of the CD is a June 1979 concert at the Old Waldorf in San Francisco, within days of the final break-up of the band.  Greg Ingraham had left the band when this music was made; he was replaced by Brad Kent (also known as Brad C--t, and formerly in Victorian Pork, which spawned D.O.A. and other important Canadian punk rock bands). 

 

Greil Marcus wrote the glowing and lyrical liner notes for The American in Me; they start off:  “In 1977, ‘The American in Me’ was the torn flag flown by the Avengers.  Singer and writer Penelope Houston, guitarist Greg Ingraham, bassist James Wilsey, and drummer Danny Furious made up the best punk band in San Francisco, at moments the best in the country – and what they were claiming in ‘The American in Me’ was the country itself:  the country that the Avengers’ songs said didn’t want them, didn’t recognize them, didn’t hear them, wouldn’t listen.  They left themselves no room for irony. 

 

“‘We Are the One’, they announced; ‘What is “the One”?’ the song makes you ask.  ‘I am the one who brings you the future,’  [Penelope] Houston chants to end it.  ‘I am the one who buries the past’.  Everything about the thing sounds ridiculous, especially the glee you can hear in the band’s voices, the Oh-my-God-we-are-actually-pulling-this-off thrill of saying what you want to say right out loud, where everyone can hear you, free speech like the Batman signal in the sky, or a rock through the window that separates the true from the false.  Everything sounds ridiculous – except what the song actually sounds like, and the frightening conviction backing up every word.  No matter how sarcastic Houston was on stage, taunting the crowd between numbers, the songs said the Avengers meant exactly what they said or they meant nothing.  ‘The American in Me’ could not be a joke.”