Marriage

"It wasn't my idea to drag the stick across the sand. M thought it was funny that the stick was something like a caveman would carry and even funnier that I wasn't able to carry it in a threatening way. M was frustrated that the camera has a slight delay before capturing the image. I imagine that my figure is supposed to be a little closer and to the right."

Brad Adkins' talk, "Big Red", was recorded at the Marriage Records studio on October 19th 2004 and is currently available in the shop.

RIYL: Daniel Buren, Cinema Verite, Battles
Brad Adkins is a googlism.

Following reviews reprinted in full:
"How many people do you want to hear an entire record of them talking? I mean there's another guy talking a little bit, helping shape the stories by asking questions and stuff at times, but how many people do you want to hear them just ramble on and stuff? How many people would you pay to hear them talk about the lack of artistic validity within karaoke, or a co-worker who made 'the logical follow-up to Dark Side of the Moon'? Probably not many, unless you are (let's face it) insane.

"This really bright, unassuming conceptual artist from Portland named Brad Adkins is one of those people who are just naturally funny and weird but not like kooky-weird or coo-coo-weird. I barely know Brad but I think he was just born kind of weird. But it's a weird you want to get to know, the kind of weird where you really want to talk with him for a long time (or just listen to him talk, in the case of this CD, unless you talk to your CDs, in which case, welcome to the club!) Because the way Brad's mind works is a really interesting zig-zag thing.

"He is talking, just talking on this record, and it's really cool. I love it when people surprise me, don't you? Listening to Brad on this record Big Red is surprising. He should be on This American Life and become a multi- thousandaire. This is one of the most seriously charming records I've heard in a good while."
Mike Mcgonigal - YETI/Chemical Imbalance

"Big Red is an artist's audio journey—an introspective travelogue snaking through the mind, carrying it to deep and delightful places. Portland artist Brad Adkins' voice is the vehicle: scratchy, slightly hesitant, and pausing, obsessively, to ask us: 'Do you know what I mean?' Curtis Knapp's soft staccato sound—both in voice and drums—is like an exotic butterfly hovering nearby. Sometimes we think we know what Brad means, and sometimes we don't, but we always want to know more. Adkins' art is always, first and foremost, about exploration. Adkins is one of the most curious artists in Portland, hands down. And so this recording is not just a monologue—in fact, you are being fooled into thinking about it that way.

"Listening to Big Red is like spending an afternoon with Brad, considering the kinds of questions that Brad Adkins asks himself and others. Like, 'How do you imagine creatures that you can't possibly see?' and 'How can people sneak into museums and sleep there?'

"Adkins is interested in the overlapping inconsistencies of language, image and sociality. Big Red, what is it? you do not receive a definitive answer, but by the time you reach the end of the CD you no longer want one. Instead of "easy" answers, you are offered layer upon layer of allusion—aural and mental loam forms rich top soil for this garden of ideas to grow... There is a super-there there, and a here referred back to there, and vice versa. One could get lost, but in truth, the cross referentiality of Adkins' way of thinking, leads one squarely back to safety."
Stephanie Snyder, Director and Chief Curator, Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, Reed College, Portland, Oregon