Dreadnaught: King of Afropunk by D.H. Peligro

Dreadnaught: King of Afropunk Reviews

• 
  Patrick O'Neil

  The insanity of addiction fucks with all of us. It doesn't matter if you're a rock star or a homeless dope fiend. Although when we think of junkies we do tend to conjure up the homeless drug addict's image a lot quicker than a popular musician's. If you've got the money or at least the fame you can hide away in rehab and no one will ever know. That is unless you write a book that details every fucked up scary-ass moment of your entire life. Which is exactly what D.H. Peligro did in his memoir Dreadnaught: King of Afropunk. Imagine getting kicked out of The Red Hot Chili Peppers for being too loaded? How about bits of your body falling off due to an abscess you've just let fester? Or getting busted selling to an undercover narc? Most folks would shy away from letting the world know all this sordid subject matter. But D.H. Peligro goes for the gold and he does it in such a matter of fact down to earth way that after a few sentences you're hooked and right there with him on his down hill road to hell. And just so you know, the book isn't all the worst moments of his life – there's also a lot of musical history to take in, as well as a bit of dirt on some famous musicians. But in the end it's Peligro's pure determination to live through it all that is the selling point. Check it out, if you're a punk rock aficionado, a drug addict memoir buff, or just a reader of biographies – this book has it.
• 
  Marvin

  D. H. Peligro was the drummer for Dead Kennedys and briefly the drummer for Red Hot Chili Peppers. He later fronted the Band Peligro, which along with Fishbone and Bad Brains, became one of the few black performers in the punk rock movement. Peligro's autobiography, Dreadnaught, chronicles his work with these bands but also give good insight on what it was like being black in a musical environment that was predominantly white. His biography seems to be a basically honest account. Peligro doesn't hold back when he discusses his own personal issues. He speaks with frankness and isn't afraid to bring up his demons. For instance when he writes about being abused by his step-father , he communicates an uncomfortable mixture of terror and childhood vulnerability...
  
  

  Sometimes when he was really drunk, he would wake me up out of a dead sleep and I would be staring into both barrels of his twelve-gauge shotgun pointed directly in my face.
  
  "What yo' sweat? Are you a man?" he would ask me. I can still feel his hot alcohol breath on my face and hear his hoarse, sloppy whisper in my ear.
  
  "Wake up! Are you a man?"
  
  No, I'm a kid I would think to myself.

  
  
  He writes with this same frank honesty as he discusses his past drug use which resulted in 27 rehabs. He writes about his anger at his band mates who he blamed for his hardships while, in hindsight, acknowledging that he was essentially his own worse enemy.
  
  The problem with most rock autobiographies is that the road to stardom to drug addiction to eventual redemption is so common most of us have memorized the tune. However, Peligro's account does have some unusual twists. I was surprised to hear that Dead Kennedys were very anti-drug. Also, Peligro had an unusual musical history compared to many punk rockers. Many, if not most, punk rock musicians got into the lifestyle first, then became musicians and learned music as they performed. The joke that the difference between New Wavers and Punk Rockers is that New Wavers can actually play their instruments has a ring of truth. However Peligro had quite a bit of musical experience before he entered the punk rock scene. His Uncle Sam, who played with the legendary bluesman Robert Nighthawk, was influential in Peligro's decision to learn drums and guitar and D. H. played progressive rock and metal before he gravitated to the San Francisco punk scene. It is these little bits of information that keep Dreadnaught from being just another rags-to-riches-to-rags rock tale. His outlook on the punk scene in the late 70s and 80's is a nice addition to the scores of other autobiographies out there and feels a bit more real than the glittery excesses of a Pete Townsend or Rod Steward. D. H. Peligro stayed in the trenches.
  
  If you have any interest in punk rock, Dead Kennedys, or the Punk counter-culture, you should enjoy this book. Three and a half stars.
  
  
  
  
  
• 
  Jesse Coulter

  I read this as a Dead Kennedys fan and reader of the occasional music bio. While overall I would say I enjoyed it, there are some massive issues with the book, which is a real shame as it could have been great.
  
  On the positive side, DH has undeniably lived a pretty hectic life, full of experiences both good and bad. It was cool and interesting reading about his introduction to punk rock, his early days in the DK’s, his travels and experiences and the racism he has experienced in his life. It’s also a poignant reminder of the destruction of hard drugs and an insight into the addicted brain. Some of the descriptions of his drug-related hardships (including the deaths of many friends, losing a fist-sized chunk of leg to rot from repeated injecting, and about 30 attempts at rehab to name but a few), truly made my skin crawl.
  
  I had two massive issues with this book. First, I received my copy of this from the distributor, and I’m praying it’s an uncorrected proof (although there are none of the usual statements saying so inside the front cover etc). If not, the editor needs to be shot- it’s pretty haphazardly constructed and brimming with spelling and grammar issues. Also, you don’t really get the sense that DH has really changed. Yes, at the conclusion of the book he has turned a new leaf and is sober, but he has had so many ups and downs in his addicted life that there’s really nothing special about his latest recovery to suggest it’s permanent. He rues his past selfishness at many points throughout the book, but then other things he writes suggest that he is still prone to this behaviour despite his sobriety.
  
  Overall I’m glad I read it, but I think with a good ghost writer this could have been an amazing bio, and instead it is simply a passable one.
• 
  Joseph Spuckler

  You hear a lot of stores in twelve-step meetings—shocking narratives of brutal childhoods, shattered families, hard falls from grace, harrowing descents into degradation, desperate time spent in detox, emergency rooms, psychiatric units, and jail cells. After awhile you begin to think you've heard it all, that nothing will ever surprise you again about human behavior under the influence of drugs and alcohol, or about the human spirit's ability to recover...
  
  Dreadnaught: King of Afropunk by D.H. Peligro is the memoir of one of the very few African-American punk rockers to make it big. Peligro is from St. Louis and had a pretty hard childhood in the projects and ghettos. Thanks in part to mandatory busing, his musical preferences were much different than what would be expected: Metal, like Judas Priest. Peligro was the drummer for the Dead Kennedys from 1981 through the breakup in 1986 and since the 2001 Jello-less reunion. He also played for the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1988.
  
  I glanced at this book quickly and was ready to pass it by when I saw Dead Kennedys. That caught my attention. I had been a bit of a DK fan and still am. I am much more a fan of the New York punk movement and the West Coast music never appealed to me except for the Dead Kennedys. They seem much more mature and political in their music. Not the typical west coast, whiny, suburban kids singing about how bad things are. I have some respect for the Dead Kennedys.
  
  Dreadnaught is your typical rock and roll memoir. Good times, bad, times, lots of drugs, and many failed chances to get straight. There is nothing new in that. What is new is finding out that the Dead Kennedys were not a drug band and found Peligro's drug use problematic. The Red Hot Chili Peppers had is share of drug problems, but here again Peligro's drug use caused problems. Flea although not a saint, as described by Peligro, did not abuse drugs and did not tolerate abuse. Insights into the bands made up some of the most interesting parts of the story.
  
  Although this is your typical drug abuse memoir, Peligro is an interesting person. His rise from the ghetto, his taste in music, and the people he worked with is impressive. He mentions race growing up and the problems that caused, but he never used it as an excuse once he moved out to California. Peligro does mention a skin head yelling out to “send all the blacks back to Africa” before a concert. But Peligro plays it off as the skin head's ignorance of the band. Few people knew the Dead Kennedys had a black drummer; there were never any pictures of the band members on the albums. If you would have asked me last week to name a black punk rock band member, I would have drawn a blank. (I have since seen the documentary on the band Death.) A few more bits of information on Peligro are that he is vegan/vegetarian, even when on hard drugs, and was once a bicycle messenger. Despite the typical plot, Peligro does tell an interesting story. Recommended for Dead Kennedys' fans and fans of general rock memoirs.
• 
  Brian

  Oftentimes I have no idea what I am about to get into when I start a book. That's the case here. Obviously there was some initial draw for me to look for it, and then (months or years) later it is like walking into an unknown dark room.
  
  Anyway, this is a junkie music story. It hits many of the regular beats for these types of stories.
  
  As I listen, I wonder how the memory is so vivid looking back on a drug hazed past. I have a hard time remembering last week and I havent done drugs for years! I have only vague large blurry memories of my past so this is just so unbelievable to me. But, people are different.
  
  
• 
  Julie

  D.H. is self-aware and well organized when telling his story. Much of the book is centered around his struggle with addiction, but he does not tell using stories with a braggy glorifying tone. Graphic and realistically frustrating, it’s one of the most true to life portrayals of recovery I’ve read, and his role in the music world just made it that much more interesting. I’m sad that I only found this book after his death, but so glad I read it.
  
  (Great narrator on the audiobook)
• 
  Patrick Taylor

  I appreciated DH exploring how his childhood trauma and racism impacted him, but too much of this book was devoted to childish descriptions of his sexual exploits and his revolving door through almost 30 stints in rehab. I wish there had been more about his music, but it seemed like music was just a vehicle for him to gain access to sex and drugs.
• 
  Liz

  This isn't particularly well-written, so I skimmed the childhood stuff and read the pink parts, but got bored halfway through when he starts hanging with the worst band, Red Hot Chili Peppers.
  The usual sex drugs and rock and roll.
  
• 
  Johnmcdonald

  Solid read. Didn’t get boring like Scar Tissue did. Dark, disturbing, graphic, humorous. Filled in some info I don’t know.
• 
  Terrence

  More Afropunk bios needed.
• 
  Cameron

  I really wanted to like this book more than I did - it is well written and I am a huge DK fan. I am interested in the not-Jello side of the band's story plus the following wave of West Coast punk / funk / alternative rock that started in late 80s then bloomed and boomed in the mid 90s. Despite knowing he had drug problems, I expected this to be the ideal book for me.
  
  DH's story is very interesting up till his time with the Chilli Peppers in the late 1980s and his drug addiction taking over his life. Growing up in St Louis during the integration period and the life in the ghettos, and the absolute void of drink and smoking that was left to most semi-educated black folk, provided a context to the funk, rap and black rock from the 1970, 80 and early 90s that I got into but didn't really get - these guys had things to be angry about.
  
  His early experiences as part of San Francisco scene in the late 70s and early 80s is also of interest - taking all of that angry pissing up against the wall in a hedonistic binge. A lot of what was going on that is impossible to imagine happening again in the war on drugs and HIV/AIDS world of today.
  
  His time with the Kennedy's is fairly light on, but it is clear that Jello's ego and failure to acknowledge his short comings as musician (as opposed to being a great lyricist) was an issue from the get go with band, eventually leading to their demise and waste of money and emotional energy with the Penis Landscape stunt he forced through. Even the band his ego and disdain for the band's effort would lead to financial mismanagement via Alternative Tentacles and further hardship.
  
  After the break up of DK the book becomes an unpleasant drag through an egotistical junky's history of screwing up, pissing on every second chance that he was given and hurting people around him; there is only so much love and effort you can waste on people and he milked it hard - 30 sponsored stints in rehab...
  
  This guy is talented and should have been the Chilli Peppers drummer for life, but he could not stay clean and would not listen to the needs of the rest of the band (slow down! its funk not punk) so got the boot. He stills feels resentment and brings it up 3 or 4 time in the book.
  
  Sadly, by the end of the story (mid 2013) I am not convinced that he has really changed and that an OD isn't waiting for him next time he feels sorry for himself or bored with being clean.
  
  I would recommend this for Chilli Peppers and Dead Kennedy's fans, but really only the pre-DK period and some of the band stuff later in the book.
  
• 
  Alan Lewis

  Autobiography of DH Peligro. Tells of his beginnings in St. Louis and the influences on his life including those musical influences he gained through family members. His life in music starting with that first plastic drum set he got in his childhood, through both the Dead Kennedys and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The darker side of his life is explored and the substance abuse that he battled. Tells of the rehab and detox sessions to battle those demons. I have had only passing acquaintance of his music, but I am sure his writing of his story was therapeutic. This book was obtained as a free Goodreads Giveaway.
• 
  Michelle Olms

  Great book