From rocking sold out shows at Madison Square Garden with Dispatch to bringing hope through the arts to a trash dump community in Nicaragua, Brad Corrigan is a visionary living a wild and traveled life in a global community.  In 2005, Brad (who performs as Braddigan with drummer Paul Stivitts (USA), percussionist Reinaldo De Jesus (Puerto Rico), and bassist Tiago Machado (Brazil)) was asked to do a benefit concert in the US for an orphanage in Nicaragua.  Wanting the connection to go deeper, he followed up with the concert by visiting the orphanage -- it was that trip that changed his trajectory in the most unlikely ways.

On a tour of Managua, Brad's guide drove him through the city trash dump and through the lens of the camera and the protection of the window, he could not believe what he saw -- people.  A number of visits later Brad was following the routine -- drive through the dump without stopping, snap photos, head home -- when a girl ran up to the car and rapped on the window.  For the first time, Brad lowered the camera, rolled down the window and was face to face with this world.

The girl literally dragged him from the car and with a proud smile introduced him to her family and showed him their one-room house (made from corrugated metal and other scraps).  That day changed the course of Brad's life -- in March 2007 he founded Love Light and Melody to combat the physical, emotional and spiritual effects of the extreme poverty in this community, which is now his home away from home.

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"i'm not entirely sure where to begin because i don't actually remember a start to all this... Rather it's been just one little step at a time into a world unlike any i've ever known, and it's all been moving fast... my education in the dump that is, and the building of this new community of family and friends with whom i now have the privilege to share my life with in and among the heaps... so it's every month or so that i'm back down in Nicaragua now, in La Chureca walking along side some of the families there, getting to know the both dark and beautiful reality of their lives... And it's the dustiest kids that i find there with their lightning smiles and unsinkable imaginations that have the strongest hold on my heart, and their fingerprints are just all over my life now- they are stealing their food, fun, and hope from trash- and they're giving me the teaching of my life.

"so with every trip i have yet another duffel of stories to unpack and storehouse of photos and memories to share... so many snapshots of this simple yet tragic life of a people that have nothing other than trash to convert into currency, and an endless amount of darkness and light battling at every moment- what has distinguished the last few months' trips though, is that every memory and image is shrouded in smoldering fire and chalky white smoke... it is the dry season and there are more fires and smoke on the horizon than ever before, from burning tires and plastic above ground to spontaneous combustion below from all the natural gas that has built up in the rotting... i've witnessed more corruption, joy, sickness, dirt encrusted smiles, glue huffing, and new little babies than ever before too. how about this one? wild cows and dogs walking alongside a young mother and her kids. she is 9 months pregnant and still working the trash daily looking for anything of value... vultures, fires, and smoke are her context as she sifts through garbage up to her knees carrying a box of plastic... her name is Damaris and her kids are now our kids, her struggle is now our struggle. la lucha. and, wow, is she beautiful and dignified in the way that she carries herself."

Trash and people don't go together. These stories are straight from my journal from the beginning of 2007. This stuff is real. Thanks for being willing to open your eyes and imagination up to this place... stay tuned for a lot more to come-
-Brad Corrigan