Kevin Warnock

Peligro playing at music venue The New Parish in Oakland, California USA, March 2, 2012. Photo by Kevin Warnock.

My good friend Willy Lipat used to play in Jungle Studs and in Sluglords, two interesting punk bands from San Francisco, California USA.

Lipat got to know many musicians in the punk scene.

Steve DePace and D.H. Peligro were two of the other four members in Jungle Studs, along with Tony Chatham and Freddy.

Unfortunately, I have been told that Chatham got too deep into drugs and alcohol and ruined his mind so severely that the last time I heard he is living at Laguna Honda Hospital, which I can see at night only when its lights are on through the trees outside my living room window, about a mile away. I’ve been told Chatham doesn’t remember even his own wife and two children, so I have not been to see him. I would like to visit Tony Chatham, so if his family finds this, please let me know if a visit would be appropriate.

I got to know DePace and Peligro in their Jungle Studs days because I was studying (aka wasting vast amounts of my family’s money) at Brooks Institute at the time, and photographed Jungle Studs for a class assignment. One of these days I will drag out my old 4 x 5″ Kodak Vericolor negatives and have them scanned so I can illustrate a post about Jungle Studs.

Chatham was fond of telling me that he had framed the photograph I took of Jungle Studs and displayed it over his bed.

Lipat is still friends with DePace and Peligro, and DePace even came to my house for my birthday in 2007, with Lipat.

I just learned last week that Steve DePace went to high school at St. Ignacious, an elite and costly private school in San Francisco. This makes perfect sense to me because DePace is a sharp guy who writes well. DePace seems to have taken on a leadership role in the vintage hard core punk rock scene. He organized a great concert March 2, 2012 at the Oakland, California music venue The New Parish. The other musicians thanked him over the public address system several times throughout the four band event. DePace was the only organizer thanked, so clearly DePace is the guy.

Steve DePace is the drummer for the influential punk band Flipper, founded in 1979. I wrote a blog post in February, 2012 about Flipper.

D.H. Peligro was the drummer for Dead Kennedys, my favorite punk band, during its heyday in the 1980s. Peligro briefly was a member of The Red Hot Chili Peppers, according to Peligro’s WikiPediA entry.

D.H. Peligro has his own band now, appropriately named Peligro. Peligro means ‘danger’ in Spanish. One word cool band names are rare these days, so I suspect Peligro is glad to have Peligro.

Peligro played March 2, 2012 at the DePace organized show at The New Parish. I was there with my good camera, at the invitation of Steve DePace.

Peligro has produced three recordings. Sadly, I am not familiar with any of them, so I can’t comment on them.

What I can comment on is that on March 2nd, Peligro looked healthy, strong, lean and powerful, both on stage and off. He appears to have the same physique he had when he posed in a loin cloth at Powell and Market Streets (the tourist center of the City) in San Francisco for the cover of their Jungle Studs debut record over 20 years ago.

By my calculations, D.H. Peligro is 51 years old. He’s just as bold with women as I remember him being years ago. For his Friday night performance, Peligro wore a Coca-Cola red t-shirt emblazoned in the Coca-Cola font in white that read ‘Enjoy Cock.’ What I wouldn’t give for Peligro’s supreme confidence. Peligro used to date gorgeous and frequently published models, and I would not be surprised if he still does.

Playing in a punk rock band looks tiring. Whatever position one has in a punk band, the intensity is generally at the top end of the spectrum. Frankly, I am in awe that Peligro still has the physical energy for this. At the Friday show, he was on fire, as you can see in these pictures, which I took with my Canon 5D Mark II with a Canon 80-200mm L zoom lens on a tripod from the balcony.

Peligro has two other strong musicians that were also on fire on Friday.

I’m including video I shot of one song, to show you their musical energy. I spoke with D.H. after the show, and he remembered me which was flattering since I haven’t seen him in perhaps two decades, but I forgot to ask permission to post this video. I had permission from Steve DePace to capture video of Flipper. I had permission from the concert venue to be there capturing video. I simply don’t know if I had permission to capture video of the opening bands. D.H., if you’re reading this and would like me to remove the video clip, send me a message on Facebook. If you want me to photograph your band or just you, I would be honored to help out. Have a look at my work photographing people, here.

Peligro playing at music venue The New Parish in Oakland, California USA, March 2, 2012. Photo by Kevin Warnock.

As is usual, I posted these pictures at full camera resolution of 21 megapixels. Click on them to see them at full size.

Here are two Peligro music videos I discovered while researching this post. Powerful stuff.

Peligro was nominated for a Grammy Award for his rendition of Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix, which you can see D.H. Peligro singing in the second video below.