http://www.vmagazine.com/feature_music_rockdiary41.html

Photography Hedi Slimane
Text Alex Needham, deputy editor at NME magazine

DUSTIN’S BAR MITZVAH

The sound of a party that goes from Friday night to Monday morning

West London four-piece Dustin’s Bar Mitzvah insists that its wild years are behind it. Having released a single in April 2005 and an album of its demos only in Japan (thanks to a label over there who loved the band), Dustin’s Bar Mitzvah responded by going on an intensive program of raucous partying. “Looking back,” says contrite singer and guitarist Dave Lazer, 22, “we were getting so fucked before we played that we must have been fucking awful. I think we were quite entertaining in the way that watching people fall over is entertaining, but I don’t think we were particularly good.” Today, Dustin’s Bar Mitzvah (also including guitarist Rob Pearce, 22, bassist Peter Bacon, 26, and drummer Toby Burroughs, 18) is recording its bona fide debut album, and is so newly sensible that the band members even make sure to eat the British government-recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. “We didn’t used to eat at all on weekends,” says Lazer. “But now we’ll say ‘Toby, how many portions have you had?’ and he’ll be like ‘three’ and run to the kitchen to get an apple.” Despite this enthusiasm for healthy eating, the music is as rough-edged as ever. The band’s last single, “To the Ramones” was a boozy ode to old punk records that even Joey Ramone would have tipped his fringe to. This picture was taken right in the middle of Dustin’s Bar Mitzvah’s messy phase at a small pub in East London. “At that gig, we found another band’s set list and started to play its songs, even though we’d never heard them before,” remembers Lazer ruefully. “We all thought it was dead funny, got offstage, and everyone was like, ‘what the fuck are you doing?’” Yet Dustin’s Bar Mitzvah has brains and a conscience too—its next single is a hymn of hate to Nick Griffin, leader of the far-right British National Party. And the band’s name? It comes from a secondhand homemade T-shirt commemorating a bar mitzvah on October 28, 1990. If you’re Dustin, get in touch.
Photo commissioned by Ashley Heath

been looking for this for ages, cheers

no probs

dustins? healthy and sober? surely not

i dont believe it 4 a second

i do, they're good boys now

as if, they're just saying that coz everyone knows they are druggie scum

fuck off back under whatever stone u crawled out from

yeh cos dustins have been to hell and back with the drugs and the booze havnt they...


"looking back ruefully"


at least they pulled through and made it out of their dark period still alive..



hahaha FUCK OFF

my mate saw dave in frog last night, she said he was by himself, had his eyes half closed and was trying to lean against a wall, but kept misjudging it...

hahahahaha!

yeah i saw him too, he was pilled off his head, he said that he wasnt drinking so he'd decided to take a load of pills instead, saw rob and baco too- rob was a mess and baco wasnt much better

thats good that he's not drinking, but surely taking a load of pills is worse isn't it? i dont take e's so i wouldnt know. whatever, as long as they're not fucked on stage in leeds im not too bothered!

i was in the toilets at frog and rob came in, he was so drunk he pissed all over his own shoes-haha

"whatever, as long as they're not fucked on stage in leeds im not too bothered!" Yeah. Don't hold your breath mate...

ahaha, what nobbers, i know 16 year olds who can hold their drink and drugs better than them lot

as if