Even though spring still isn't quite here yet you can still feel it in the air and one of the great indicators that it is just around the corner is already upon us.  Yes, it is St. Patrick's Day again and even though it is not really celebrated here in Germany you can rest assured that there will still be people running around with green clothes and painted faces and some craziness will occur in the local pubs, especially the Irish ones.  And not long after that it will be Easter, a bit early this year but hopefully the beginning of an upward swing in the weather.  A good summer is definitely in order after the winter we had here!

So it seems that 2010 is chugging right along at a pretty good pace and we are trying to keep up with things here.  Live shows are being booked for Paul E. Phonics with the first date confirmed, details here.  The goal is to continue with 3 to 4 shows a month around northern Germany and get a short tour together to end the year which should take things a bit further into the south and possibly Poland and the Czech Republic.

There have also been considerations made concerning the Paul E. Phonics debut release which was originally planned as a full album but may now be scaled back to an E.P.  This is not for lack of material - there is actually enough material for nearly 2 albums at the moment - but for other non-artistic reasons.  Releasing an E.P. means fewer songs to get finished and mastered which will allow the release to happen sooner rather than later, a very important consideration.  The idea would be to do a spring release and then another E.P. at the end of the year, maybe late November or early December.  So it would be more like releasing an album in two parts.  E.P.s (and to some extent the singles) seem to be the trend right now with many declaring albums "obsolete" so as much as 5th Estate Music is not here to follow the crowd it is still a good opportunity to experiment with this form of release and compare it to the Fine Print Pariah album release.  Another major difference is that Paul E. Phonics tracks tend to be more "stand alone" productions so it isn't really that important how they are grouped and packaged together which is a lot different than the FPP debut which was created and organized very much as an "album" with the songs working off of each other to create a greater experience.  Not that the Paul E. Phonics stuff is any less artistic, just different.

No final decision has been made but it will be soon and when it is, this will be the place to find out about it.  Until then!