ian downey is famous: destroy language

Do we need another “rock” album? I mean, look in your basement. Look at all those “rock” discs you bought, or stole, or found, or made, over decades. A swampland of tired riffs, pounding beats, blood, thunder, flatulence: full of sound and fury, signifying not at all. When was the last time you played any of that shit? I mean, played it with no irony, no gloss of nostalgia? Here. Take this. It’s the new Ian Downey is Famous release, Destroy Language. I’ve been driving around Rochester, NY, just listening to it... When I drive through the neighborhood to my suburban Shangri-la, it reminds me that I don’t have a clue what I’m doing or where I’m going, reminds me how easily clapboards burn. I can hear them smoldering through my speakers. And when I’m in the city and I see the dude under the overpass with the dog-eared cardboard “Anything Helps” sign, I get the story that made his story. I’m not saying I know what to do...but Billboards touting lies, Wegmans trucks with radishes and carrots as big as trees, rail yards without engines, only empty cars— it all falls away. Language, destroyed. What’s left? I don’t know. But I know what’s gone. So the answer to the question above is a resonant and unqualified “Fuck yeah!” There is a purity here—a filthy, rotten... more