Craig High

Above is a video for the Pnevma track Dervish which involves footage of the band, footage of the sick fuck who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, footage of American Nuclear tests, footage from fifties American TV & footage from Thomas Edison’s first experiments with the moving image. I completed the piece in 2002.Above that is a film by Dave Eyre with the music by myself as a High Cigar project in protest against George W Bush’s military imperialism. It was also completed in 2002.Above that is a film for the Pnevma track Sabbat {featured in the tunes section}. The film is of footage I shot whilst on the biggest Anti-War demo in British history {2003}.Above that is a vid. of a solo track wot I wrote. The film is a celebration of our daughter Lilith’s birth which my partner & I completed in 2003.The vid. above that is a band {Sister Mary Elephant} I sung in at a session in 2006. The vid. was made by my good self with the collaboration of Mark Courtney & Dave Eyre. It features footage from the Blue Rock Free Festival in West Wales 2005 & footage from the anti-G8 demo. in Edinburgh 2005 which my partner & I filmed.Above that is a banned Anarchist/monarchist Life-Swap me & my family took part in a couple of years ago. ITV thought it was innapropriate for mainstream TV. Someone sent me a link anonymously so we weren’t tempted to breach our contractual aggreements with Granada TV {who were commissioned to make the prog.} Thank god for Pirate TV. If you go to www.highpanch.org.uk I have made a book available that I wrote to make up for the 80 odd hours of footage that didn’t make the final edit.All the above films have been provided courtesy of the Christiebooks section of the Brightcove internet TV site. Enjoy.The tunes on the above audio player are either High Cigar mixes or remixes or one of the bands I’ve been in.I am an Anarcho-Socialist who believes that we are in desperate need of a second industrial revolution in order to transfer to environmentally safe methods of propulsion & production.I am an internationalist & a situationist.I am utterly opposed to international warfare & believe no country has the right to occupy another.I believe in every human being’s right to migrate around the planet without restriction.I am opposed to factory farming & am a great believer in reforestation.High Cigar is a solo project that I have been running since 2002. Having been in bands since 1984 I thought it was time to fashion some home-spun DJ based material covering themes & experimental styles that seem relevant to the 21st century. As with most of the bands I have been in & the line-ups I play in at the moment the music is almost impossible to categorize. I believe this is essential as a precursor to new categories being developed. On that note I believe High Cigar is an attempt to avoid the present obsession with 20th century nostalgia. In a world where Drum & Bass is still seen as the most recently evolved musical form I believe it is essential that we split from tradition. I went to my first Drum & Bass event nearly 15 years ago! I still love the genre & it’s influence on High Cigar is obvious but I am confounded as to why newer forms of musical creativity have not come along & impacted in all that time. I thought revivalism was rife in the early 1980’s when I used to go to a Mod Club on one night of the week, a Rock & Roll gig on another, a Heavy Metal club on another & a Punk gig to finish the cycle off at the end. The dabbling in earlier genres was an obsession back then but was as nothing compared to the derivative & repetative music scene as it exists today. I therefore hope that the music on this site is as new to you as it seems to me & I welcome any comments on this issue.Within the bands I have performed in I have first & foremost been a singer & lyricist. For the last fifteen years {of the twenty four that I have been playing live} I have also played clarinet, tin whistle, tenor recorder, percussion of various kinds {particularly the African djembi drums}, keyboards, guitar, thumb piano, bass guitar, zuti box, overtone flute, harmonica & kazoo.I have been in numerous bands. In chronological order some of them include The Hornets, State 53, Psycho’s Mum, The Weird Happenings Organisation, Dangerous Bend Mirrors, Fuzznation, Whip The Minister, Revoltage, Sunsnake, The Missing Puddings, Lord Snooty, Lord Snooty Deceased, Underdog, Pnevma, Delegate Zero, The Druid’s Revenge Collective, The Kreative Action Network and Not The Only Clown In The Village.I have been in countless pick-up bands some of which include The Wicked Faeries of Chaos, The Queen Mum’s Balsa Wood Teeth Experience, Goatbeard The Dry Leper, Kill Debt, Dorsal Root Ganglion & The Roadkill Toadskin Revue. I have guested in untold bands such as Headjam, The Bikinis, The Feckin’ Ejits, The Hoochie Coochie Band, Impossible Stress Factor, Triptych, & Running On Empty.I have played with plenty of boundary breaking musicians some of which include Nik Turner, Nick {The Bevis Frond} Saloman, Mick Crossley from The Flyte Reaction, Chris Bowsher out of RDF, Dave Skull from The Dispossessed, Billy Jenkins from The Voice of God Collective, Joe Bazouki from The Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain, Gypsy Phil Barrett, Jason from Johnny Action Finger & The Monty Pirates, Alice & Dave from The Monty Pirates, Cosmic Andy from The Space Pirates, Colin & Molara Powerstepper of Zion Train, Jason Terrestrial, Paco Terrestrial of Conflict fame, Mike Barry from Easter & The Totem, Bari Watts from The Outskirts of Infinity, Fran Terrestrial, Phil P.A.I.N. & Maggie Nichols.At present, apart from High Cigar, I am playing music with The Druid’s Revenge Collective and Not The Only Clown In The Village. "The Druid’s Revenge Collective" is a jamming beatnik orchestra with a fluctuating line-up from week to week. Anywhere from between 10 and 20 poets and musicians gather every Tuesday at various locations to play and record 21st Century hybrid music with instruments ranging from guitars, bass guitars, Djembi drums, clarinets, saxophones, tin whistles, recorders, Jew’s Harps, Keyboards, harmonicas, clackamores, trombones, trumpets, flutes, aguiras, octave flutes, and more vocal styles than you could shake a stick at. Members often include myself on percussion, clarinet, whistles, tenor recorder, harmonica and vocals, Bertie on trumpet, Nik Turner on clarinet, saxophone and flute, Betty on clarinet, Steve Pyatt on octave flute, harmonica, percussion, Jew’s Harp, Nohj on guitar, Andrew Kitchen on Bass, Gentleman Jim ..boards, Dai Wyn Jones on guitar and trombone, Jan on sax, Gareth on sax, Tuesday on trumpet, Cliff the Riff on electric guitar and the stringmeister Mr Pete Wey on guitars plus, and not forgetting Ervine the Bard on Space Poetry."Not The Only Clown in The Village" are essentially a four piece gigging Dib Folk Punk band which have been through a few line-up changes over the past year since their creation at the beginning of 2007. Jonsky out of the band Leggofingers played bass for a while and Jason out of Johnny Action Finger and The Monty Pirates has guested on bass and guitar. Nik Turner has also guested on saxophone and flute. At the start of 2008 the present full line-up has been set. Robin Benson {anchor man of TidyLike Records and The Narberth Rock School} on guitar and vocals, Tess {formerly the singer with Brother Vegetable} on drums, melodica, accordian and vocals, Bowen {guitarist of Order 66}on bass and Craig High on vocals, clarinet, tin whistle, tenor recorder, percussion and harmonica. Craig’s inaugural gig was at The Queen’s Hall in Narberth, West Wales in Dec 2007 in front of a couple of hundred punters who were largely of the teenage variety. Sendelica, Order 66, Regime and The Monty Pirates were also on the line-up. Craig compered the event and gave away chocolate Santas on sticks, Hawkwind and Devo DVDs, clown masks and tangerines as big big prizes. Our first gig with the full line-up as it now stands was at Letterston Memorial Hall in West Wales on Match 8th 2008. Robin on guitar, bass, vocals and kazoo, Tess on melodica, accordian and drums, Craig on vocals, clarinet, tin whistle and percussion, Bowen from Order 66 on guitar and bass, Nik Thunder Rider Turner of Hawkwind and Inner City Unit Fame on sax and flute and Irvine The Bard reciting space poetry. With plenty of gigs in the pipe-line for 2008 this Dubfolk Punk ensemble are poised and ready to graduate into a squeaky nose wearing, long shoed, flashing bow tied bunch of bedlamite Anarchists exploding their clown car at a venue near you! The last couple of years concluding this, the first decade of the twenty first century, will see the rise of the clown as an antidote to CCTV surveilance if we have anything to do with it. Uncle Yuk Yuk has been hatched!www.myspace.com/nottheonlyclowninthevillageI am writing copius amounts of autobiographical, semi-autobiographical & Fictional literature. Along with other writers and artists I am at present about to publish a compilation of stories involving the transgenderational assassin Jerry Cornelius who is the creation of the godfather of multiverse fiction Mr Michael Moorcock. Michael has provided us with an introduction and this project is almost complete thanks to his encouragement and support. For some of the stories in this mammoth exploration into the twisted head-spaces of various time-streams visit the blog section of this site. Take a Cornelius trip! Turn on, tune in and freeeeeek out!I also make films, music videos & produce static works of art.Lastly I would like to thank friends, family & partners for inspiration {particularly my wife Kiran, & my Mum & Dad.... Pam & Norman High}, for help with archiving & the necessary encouragement to create & perform. Most of the photos in the slide-show above are down to them. Also a very special thanks to Mark "Skip" Courtney for taking my designs seriously & constructing this site layout for me. For further information about his work visit www.GITinternational.co.uk

DON’T LET THE BASTARDS GRIND YOU DOWN!

For further info. www.highpanch.org.uk