dear folks, pleased to let you know John has made a film, and is keen for anybody interested to check it out over on youtube...

A trailer for the forthcoming 23 minute stop-motion and computer animated film by Skatedog Films Ltd. An adaptation of the classic Oscar Wilde story, 'The Happy Prince'.

An unlikely friendship between a tiny bird and a lonely statue brings new hope to a cold, Victorian city. Made over two and a half years in London, UK, by Skatedog Films, and featuring collaborations with college students. This piece innovatively combines all approaches to the animation medium: Cel, stop-motion, and CGI, to create a film with a unique vision and style. Voiced by Sean Gallagher, Penny Layden, and Jim Conway, and featuring a wonderful score composed by Andrea Possee, this piece is sure to tug any heartstrings you may have. Please take a look and send it on to your friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L78tV74hqGM

if you could rate it too, that would be wonderful

see y'all at Fuk Redding, we headline the friday 28th August night at the Crown and Anchor, Brixton, 17 sydney road, stockwell, sw9

dear friends
anyone got any ideas that help us get a cheap but transit sized van to take us as fatr as Ostende at least, starting thursday evening, return to blighty monday...it can be parked safely at ..ostende and touring done in an euro van we can collect there....but we have to get to Ostend first!
all help greatly appreciated
yours, flappingly, aos3

after much f**in about, the three gigs in belgium and holland are now clearly understood and sorted, so get your clogs on, we're playing
Antwerp, Amsterdam, and Liege across Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights respectively, all details in our up-coming shows section...as much as we have anyway! This is a small but perfectly formed weekend jaunt for us, taking in what are our very favourite european gig cities, and also paying respec as due to the Noble King of all Belgium, Vettig Patje, AKA blauwers, upon the occasion of his forty-fifth successful circumnavigation of the Solar System...why dont you come along as well...there's just enough time for us to all get really smelly...and we are running a book on whether Col's arse explodes again in Amsterdam...
arse-3!

just to let everyone know,gig starts at 8.30ish with the well fabulous Captain Hotknives and wraps up 10.30 with the younger than they look aos3, so be an early bird, plus all those who wishing to keep swigging ales whilst listening to more really loud punk ska blahdeblah, the door price covers all night til 2am. oh and for all you folk across the rivers, there are night buses back to sunderland til about 3am. see you there those.. who can make it, canny vibes those that can't.  "careful now!" x

AOS3'S YEAR 2008
well, it's been a funny old year....we have spent the whole year getting used to being a band again, from jan to december, and spent a lot of time back around each other and on the road again....and it's been a million laughs- mostly at Colin's expense, but then some things never change, eh? But we've gone out 16 times this year, including forays into the frozen north in January, journeys back out to see dear old friends and places in Europe in March, many a significant birthday was spent killing supplies of Strongbow and Stella, including my own at the beloved space in Peckham that will always be the Spike...More on that later....But also then Festival season found us at Strawberry Fayre, (watching Senser close the day!)- where incidentally the innocent baby child of Wongo and Colin 'Chicken of the woods" Cumpson, was born, and then tragically got accidentally sacrificed to Satan. But it is better to have loved and lost, eh? Do they not say so, in the old songs?
We also found ourselves in Devonshire spacerock heaven at the HAWKFEST again, which was hot hot hot and wicked, and was also where wongo and col took a 'short-cut' through the woods, only to fall into a bog which then ate one of Wongo's boots...and they walked on a few miles to the village, where Wong miraculously found a shop open on a sunday selling a pair of shoes that would fit! The surviving boot is now proudly displayed and know as the 'Hawkboot'!
Finally Endorset swung around and we played just before the best festival band of the 90's, the Tofu Love Frogs, which was a personal dream fulfilled, to watch those boys again...
A few more gigs in pubs and squats have kept us busy, and learning more of the old songs, and we are now making steps towards writing that long threatened third album, recording has begun on the first few tracks, and we plan to spend more time next year getting down to this properly. We ended the year in the company of other old friends Back to the Planet, at their Brixton Xmas gig where loads of 'types' were seen to arise from out of the woodwork. Great stuff. You'll see we have a few gigs listed on the profile if you take a look, its also planned that we do a short european tour around 18th-26th March, hitting Belgium, Holland and Germany....more details will follow soon. It looks like we'll be doing a few more gigs next year than this, so stay tuned...times are hard, but so are we! Hopefully more Festivals also in the summertime. Also of interest to a few folk on here may be the imminent rebirth of the 'Less' project, featuring John n Kev from Aos3, n matt from Headjam...expect to see something occurr with Less next year.
As mentioned earlier, we have spent many happy nights at that welcoming space in Peckham, the Spike, a true autonomous space which has always had its heart in exactly the right place, for very close to 10 years- and which is now, tragically, facing Eviction. We mourn and decry this eviction, it's going to be so self-defeating for community and autonomy in Peckham, and other nearby spaces...it cannot be overstated how rare and special a place it was, and the place was created directly by people with the same spirit and mission in its heart. It is probably directly responsible in many ways for the band even happening again, and we dread to think what will happen without it there as an anchor and symbol of a way of thinking, feeling, and acting. But despite this we say Onwards and Upwards! They can't kill the spirit! And we shall overcome.
There's been a lot of death and passing this year, amongst all this crashing and crunching, so we wish you and yours the absolute best for the next, and hope it is brighter somehow....and that you come and see us sometime soon.
Times are hard, but so are we....oh yeah, and dear old back home- the north-east- WE'RE COMING HOME AT THE END OF FEBRUARY...COME ON DOWN ON LEAP DAY FOR THE GREAT HOMECOMING GIG IN NEWCASTLE.
AOS3 xx

pps and if anyone out there knows anything about a portsmouth gig for aos3, please get in touch, as we hear we're playing there from an old friend, but don't know nuffink about it man. Low it, dats bear liberties.

AOS3 have just been confirmed to appear at HAWKFEST 2008, so that's a great festival each month for the three summer months, Wahoo!

June is Strawberry Fair with a stonking line up on the Green Stage (no longer a 12V system thanks to Bio - Diesel), including Tarantism & Tragic Roundabout, then over to the East Stage for old Festi favourites SENSER!!

July is Hawkfest 2008 with Hawkwind, Tim Blake, Omnia Opera, Tarantism, Bruise, TOSH & the fantastically named Tits of Death!

August is Endorse It in Dorset - probably the best festival in Dorset! Amazing line up including The Beat, The Buzzcocks, Dreadzone, Pronghorn, The Crop Dusters, Tofu Love Frogs, Back to the Planet, Los Albertos, Tragics etc etc.

Hope to see you there!

Sorry Chasps, but we just heard the Derby gig which was penciled in for Saturday 26th March has been canceled due to a problem finding a venue. Sorry to anyone waiting to find out where that was gonna be but it's out of our control.

ok, hi there, AOS3 in effect, and now blooded with the claret of a first gig, we nobly set off towards the Forest of HawkFest with some little rejoicing! Please come and join us. It is great to be playing the songs again, and lovely that some folk remember and still like the stuff we play. Thanx from the bottom of our heart to everyone who made the trip up or down to birmingham....we have plans now to tour with Cit. Fish in July around the uk, a small festival near Bath in August...And a plot to tour about Europe (actually probably just Belgium and Holland!) in late October....and maybe pop over to Ireland early next year....if you would like to see us near you, get in touch!
Many thanks to Frank and Xena, and also to Fleece and Sandra for all their support.
Here are the Fish tour dates...we don't play at them all, and play Eastern Haze Festival on Saturday 21st WITHOUT Cit Fish. Confused?? Then all is as it should be!!
FNORD!
CITIZEN FISH UK TOUR 2007

JULY
12 Kettering Sawyers+AOS3
13 Plymouth White Rabbit+Intro5pect
14 Instow-near Bideford-Tapeley Park festival starts 5pm
15 Newport Meze Lounge +AOS3
16 Bath Porter Butt
17 maybe...aberystwyth?
18 Southampton Joiners
19 Leeds Rios +AOS3
20 Leicester The Shed +AOS3
21 Weston-Super-Mare Hobbits
22 London Camden Underground+AOS3

Saturday, April 21, 2007
DUBBIN' UP A RIOT (AGAIN): AOS3 return after 13 years in the wilderness

Bands reform all the time, some times it is worthy of a yawn because the band were past their sell by date when they split, sometimes it stirs a grin because it brings back memories. Something very odd has been happening over the last few months though, several bands have got back together that we never expected to and they have made us sit up and think 'Aye aye, this should be interesting, fasten your seatbelt'. This is mainly because bands that left us wanting more when the spilt are coming back to say hello. Omnia Opera, Tribe of Cro, R.D.F., Back To The Planet, Police Bastard, Crazy Pink Revolvers… now you can add to that list A.O.S.3.

As we get older the distances we travel to see a good band get less and less, but a 200 mile round trip to catch AOS3's first gig for 13 years, hosted by skanking dub beats, was never in doubt though. The Bear Tavern in Birmingham is just how a venue should be, basic, no frills, frayed around the edges and with a staff that are pretty hands off and let everyone get on with having a good time.

Tonight's crowd was a mixture of local people who had turned up to their local pub to see their favourite local hardcore band and a few old heads that had travelled to witness the rebirth of legend. The more energetic of the crowd were up early for the support, bouncing around like balls in a pin ball machine. When AOS3 hit the stage though the dance floor suddenly filled up as everyone jockeyed for position to get a good view of the AOS3 phoenix rising out of the ashes.

All those AOS3 classics that we have been listening to on CD only for the last 13 years suddenly came to life, only heavier and deeper, the dubby bits got more psychedelic and the punky bits got faster and harder.

We have another Bush in the Whitehouse, even madder than the first one, so 'Bush Is On The Golf Course' took on new relevance, as did 'Warrior Nation'. We were also treated to a handful of cover versions, including 'Unknown Soldier' by RDF and everyone was caught off guard by the Jam's 'Down In The Tube Station At Midnight'. Given it is not strictly the original line up and there had only been a handful of rehearsals, after an hour they had exhausted their repertoire. They weren't getting away with that though and an ecstatic crowd demanding an encore meant they had to rewind a bit and re-do some of the set, but nobody cared, they had been waiting too long for this and they were going to make the most of it.

Eventually they had to call time and bring an end to the night, with the general consensus that this is one reunion that will have people sitting up and taking notice this summer.

Sunday, April 22, 2007
AOS3!!!
Last night I was very kindly picked up by the Iguana and the Spark to be taken up to the Bear Tavern in Birmingham for the first gig from punk dub heads AOS3 in 15 years. We arrived early and went and had a chat with John the lead singer who was also in PAIN until 2001. It seemed they were all looking forward to the gig although band practice the day before hadn't gone well! We moved into the aptly named 'samosa' room as they started sound checking and were invited to help ourselves to the samosas and onion bhajis. Luckily drummer Kev (also drummer with Headjam) was on hand to point out the spicy dip that looked like gravy in a pint glass but was actually quite nice! Soon the whole band were on stage to run through a song which they did a couple of times. Even then just listening to that was pretty amazing, a band who's CDs I've played to death, (well Gods Secret Agent anyway) but never seen live up there on stage sounding exactly how I expected them to sound! It wasn't long before the doors opened and a few people started filtering in, we stayed in the 'samosa' room where DJs F.R.C. Skinny and Megga spun some tunes. They played a nice selection of tunes including some RDF. We chilled out in there while the first band, Redeye Militia and second band Circadia played and so I didn't get to see them. We moved into the other room for the next band, Intention who I quite liked even though it was quite full-on hardcore punk/grindcore. After a short break it was time for the main event, after 15 years AOS3 were back on stage! They played an hour of class tunes including Warrior nation, Bushes on the golf course, It's a jungle out there and Scary times are never dull. It was brilliant, they sounded and looked great and the crowd loved it too! They had only practiced an hours worth of songs so played a couple again for the encore! All too soon it was all over and they were packing up their kit. We hung around for a while afterwards chatting with Mark from Iron Man Records and some of the band. A couple of people knew me from tinternet and came and said hello which is always nice. John from the band said I was his first friend on myspace, is that good or am I just sad?!! Anyway it was a cracking night, brilliant company as always from top blokes the Spark and the Iguana, brilliant to meet the band and others at the gig who were all lovely and friendly and brilliant to be able to have a drink for a change as I wasn't driving!