As a singer and songwriter, she has been in several bands including the sardonic folk trio Bleaker Street Incident, her heavy metal band Vulcan Death Grip and the psycho-psychedelic band Bongwater, with whom she released five albums and gained an international cult following that remains rabid today. Magnuson has also released two solo albums, The Luv Show (Geffen 1995) andPretty Songs & Ugly Stories (Asphodel 2007). Her EP, The Jobriath Medley, (financed via a successful Kickstarter campaign) was released in 2012. She deconstructed the concepts of success and failure through the stories and songs of glam rockers Jobriath and David Bowie at SFMOMA in 2011 in a musical theater piece titled, The Rock Star as Witch Doctor, Myth-Maker and Ritual Sacrifice. In 2012, she performed portions of that show as well as all of The Jobriath Medley at REDCAT as part of the OUTFEST Platinum series and was asked to create a special “Mudd Club Cabaret” for the Cindy Sherman opening in July 2012 at SFMOMA.
Ann has appeared as a guest vocalist on The Tindersticks album Curtains (singing with Stuart Staples in the duet “Buried Bones”). And she collaborated with John Cale on his musical work “Life Underwater,” performing it with him in 1994 at the original St. Ann’s Church in Brooklyn. She has also appeared as an actress in music videos, most notably as the crazed Annie in the Redd Kross video “Annie’s Gone” and as the mysterious Goth chick tormenting Alice in Chain’s Jerry Cantrell in his video for “My Song.”
She is currentlyin the studio working on new original material.