Legendary Songwriter Cheryl Wheeler Goes Indie with Oasis

An Oasis Disc Manufacturing Case In Point:  Cheryl Wheeler’s Premium Digipak Marks Indie Debut of Legendary Songwriter

After a lifetime recording for labels, Cheryl Wheeler’s new premium Oasis Digipak marks her moment joining the rising tide of Indie musicians. As one of the most acclaimed singer-songwriters of a generation, and the only person we know of whose songs have been covered by such a spectrum of performers that it includes both Bette Midler and Garth Brooks (among many others), I’m grateful that she chose to bring the project to Oasis. Cheryl explains: “My partner Cathleen Joyce did her initial research for this project on the Oasis website, where all of our questions were addressed in short order. Once we began working with your staff we were confident in our choice. There were also friends in common: knowing you had worked with Janis Ian, I asked her how she felt about Oasis and she replied with a stellar, glowing review.” How Cheryl’s eye-catching premium package come about? “Cathleen already had a good idea of what she wanted for the package design. Ultimately, with the help of your templates, we settled on a Digipak, with a 12-page booklet and a recycled clear plastic tray. We were particularly happy with the green options Oasis offered. This is my first independent release, and I’m loving it. Oasis really makes it easy.” Click here for a free, complete sample pack of Oasis eco-packaging options, including samples of some of the many unusual Oasis Digipak options we can put together for you – such as the Digipak and booklet option we used on Cheryl’s Pointing at the Sun project. RECYCLED TRAYS ARE STANDARD WITH ALL DIGIPAKS AT OASIS Oasis Digipaks include – at no extra charge – 100% recycled hard plastic clear trays that feature a lightly-etched inscription that indicates recycled content. 100% post-consumer, flexible BottleTrays™ are also available at no additional charge. A sample of each will be included in your free eco sample pack! Recycled black trays, and conventional white trays, also available. Micah Solomon President and Founder Oasis Disc Manufacturing

P.S. For information and expert assistance with any Oasis packaging format — including our Green Forestry Digipaks with 100% recycled trays — click here to chat live immediately with one of our client advisors, or call us at 1-866-409-8170. Click here to get your free copy of our latest (award-winning!) catalog along with samples of our environmental packaging.

Janis Ian chooses Oasis Green Forestry Digipaks — Now available with 100% recycled trays

When Grammy winning singer and songwriter Janis Ian’s autobiography was due to come out on Penguin Books, she called me up because she wanted to release a companion greatest hits CD collection. And she wanted to go over her best packaging options.

The two of us zeroed in quickly on something other than the plastic jewel cases she had used earlier in her career. “This time around, I really wanted the packaging to be special — it’s not every year you get to release an autobiography and a CD that goes with it! I was also trying to keep it eco-friendly, but still affordable.”

Considering several options, we ended up with a double-CD Digipak. Because, really, what a Digipak says is “premium.” That you have invested in what it takes to give your audience a top-quality product. Janis’ other interest — environmental friendliness — is also addressed in Oasis Digipaks. We have 100% Green Forestry Practices certification for the board stock we use, and use 100% recycled plastic for the trays (up to 100% post-consumer, depending on the tray option you chose).

I hope you’ll let us send you an eco-packaging sample kit (click here or on the link below my signature) if you are planning a CD or DVD project.  Sample kits do not include CDs and are only shippable within the U.S. presently, for which I apologize.  Thanks so much for your interest!

Micah Solomon

President and Founder
Oasis Disc Manufacturing

Roadtrip Nation goes green with Oasis packaging

Are you up on the Roadtrip Nation phenomenon? It grew out of some friends working through a dilemma together that had stumped each of them: “What do I want to do with my life?” Fresh out of college and unsure about the career paths in front of them, they were determined to expose themselves to more than just traditional life roads. Painting an old RV green, they hit the road to talk with inspired people from all walks of life to find out how they came to do what they love for a living.

Today, Roadtrip Nation has evolved into a PBS series, three books, an online community, and more. And when Roadtrip Nation wants to spread the good word about their show, they do it with discs packaged in the Green Forestry line of disc packaging from Oasis. To date, they’ve used Green Forestry Sleeves (pictured), and the new 100% post-consumer-trayed Oasis Bottletray Digipak. These formats are lighter and lower-impact than other options, giving them the youthful, eco-friendly feel that suits them. If you’re interested, I’ll be happy to send you a free  Oasis Environmental Packaging Sample kit now which I believe you’ll find useful to help start planning out your new project.

I encourage you to catch Roadtrip Nation’s latest adventures on your local PBS affiliate, or check them out online at www.roadtripnation.com.

Micah Solomon
President and Founder
Oasis Disc Manufacturing

P.S. Like all complete Oasis packages, musical projects packaged in full-color Green Forestry Sleeves and Recycled Tray Digipaks include complete Oasis Tools of Promotion:  We send your music (the track of your choice) to 400 or more radio stations in your chosen genre, provide you with distribution at  iTunes, CD Baby, Brick & Mortar retailers (on demand), free web hosting and your own website, a full year of Sonicbids, and more.

If you want assistance with any Oasis packaging format, my team is happy to help you if you  click here to chat live immediately with one of our client advisors, or call us at 1-866-409-8170.

Get your copy of the latest Oasis CD catalog

A New Year’s Greeting from Oasis

I’m thankful that this has been the most productive year in our history – for Oasis and for our clients.  We’re extremely lucky to have such a creative, productive, and loyal group of customers, and I wish you the very best heading into the new year.

I also want to send out a heartfelt thank you to the more than 600 Oasis clients who requested we make contributions in their name to the Jazz Foundation of America. This is an overwhelming outpouring, and will help the Foundation to continue its important work. The Jazz Foundation of America is a national organization dedicated to saving and enhancing the lives of jazz and blues musicians in need. Every day the Jazz Foundation prevents homelessness and eviction by paying rents and mortgages, offering free medical care and operations, and creating employment through its programs.

Since Katrina, the Jazz Foundation has increased its caseload five times over by serving all ages of musicians who suffered from the disaster, including many with young children still at home. The Jazz Foundation now cares for approximately 1,000 musicians with 1,600 emergency cases a year.

Thank you again for sharing 2008 with Oasis. We have made many new friends and enjoyed doing great projects with our old ones. Best wishes for the start of 2009.

Sincerely,

Micah*

Micah Solomon
President, Oasis Disc Manufacturing

* if elink doesn’t work on your system, you can always reach me directly at micah@micahsolomon.com

Are you building your musical tribe?

Last week I had the pleasure of attending a marketing presentation from marketing guru Seth Godin, in conjunction with the launch of his latest bestseller: Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us (Portfolio, 2008).

In one of those worlds-converging moments, I found that Seth’s surprise musical guest — and musical marketing example — was Oasis client  Jen Chapin (accompanied by her inimitable bassist husband Stephan Crump).  I hope you have had the chance to hear Jen, perhaps at the grand opening of Oasis’ Manhattan office:  If you don’t know her yet, Jen’s a singer and songwriter and an advocate for the charity World Hunger Year, founded by her dad, the late Harry Chapin.

Here is the marketing lesson Seth drew in his talk from Jen’s lineage:

Jen Chapin performs at Seth Godin event, New York Times Center

The world has moved on from the career-building techniques that worked in Harry’s era: in those days you could hinge everything on just one single career-making advocate — in his case, DJ Jim Connors, later immortalized in Harry’s song W*O*L*D.  In Jen’s/our era, you need to build, fan by fan, your own supportive “tribe” for your musical career.

So, in this day of from-the-ground up, democratized musical career building, the question is: What are you doing to build your tribe?

Musical screen gems from Screen Archives Entertainment

I’m convinced each and every day that Oasis clients do the best work in our industry.  Of course I’m tickled pink when Oasis clients get signed to major labels or have their music featured on network TV

Ingrid Michaelson • Keep Breathing •  Grey’s Anatomy

but as often as not we’re working in what’s called “the long tail”–in genres, niches that the mainstream may not even have considered. That is often where you’ll find the Oasis family creating great stuff and thriving.

In that spirit, I want to briefly shine a spotlight on a unique Oasis client and the work it does, which just blows me away.

Screen Archives Entertainment (SAE) is one of the largest distributors of soundtracks and movie music in the world. Just as fascinating, SAE produces exhaustively restored film music recordings under its own label, working with major studios, composer estates, and universities to preserve music that would otherwise be lost to deteriorating celluloid.

The seed of the company sprouted when entrepreneur Craig Spaulding opened a retail store with a sideline in eclectic music LPs. Spaulding cultivated soundtrack contacts across the globe and soon became known throughout the U.S. as the place to go for obscure and rare scores.

He sold the store, but kept SAE as a conduit for preserving rare recordings, focusing on pre-1960 Golden Age films with cherished soundtracks. Universities and studios soon came calling for Spaulding expertise in creating restorations that captured the excitement of each project — from the inclusion of the composer’s own personal notes to the finest mastering of the music, to the effective marketing of the final product.

Today SAE has contracts with composers, their estates or heirs, and major record labels to for these lovingly produced soundtracks for collectors, released in limited quantities.

The lure of these recordings is intriguing.  Even if you’re not formally a student or collector of this work, it is transformative to hear these soundtracks as you go about your formerly mundane daily life. Nothing, for example, makes a morning commute more triumphal than hearing one of these classic soundtracks surround you on your ride.  Just don’t be tempted to jump the gap if you see a drawbridge is going up–no matter how the music swells, I still suspect that only works in the movies, folks.

Juno film coup by Oasis client: How it came to pass

Have I got a story for you! It’s about an independent (extremely) musician I’ve worked with forever here at Oasis and how his song “All I Want is You” came to be the centerpiece of the opening sequence of the movie Juno (the extended, hand-animated sequence where she’s walking along and drinking SunnyD).

He’s a singer-songwriter named Barry Louis Polisar. He is a very, very nice guy. More to the point, he’s a great example of someone who doesn’t wait for the world to give him a lucky break in the clichéd “I’m going to be a rock-star someday” style. Instead, he shows up for every gig on time, he tracks down every lead. He self-publishes. He performs at schools and libraries all the way from his hometown (near Washington, DC) to Fairbanks, Alaska. He really, truly, keeps himself open for opportunity to come his way. And it does.

Now, after a lot of years in the business he is suddenly, and on an impressive scale (the Juno soundtrack has sold 600,000 copies in the first 3 months alone) truly an “overnight” success. I call his story:

Be Open to Possibilities

–OR–

How one Oasis client got a killer break because of his great attitude and our Tools of Promotion.

Here’s how it happened:

Barry manufactured several CD titles in the Micah-running-things-out-of-his-basement days of Oasis. For each title he qualified, like all Oasis clients, for our Tools of Promotion program: radio broadcast promotion, Brick & Mortar distribution, and more. But he was such an early client of Oasis, we hadn’t added the iTunes/online component of the program yet.

When we did, and he heard about it, he sent us a nice note asking if he could get certificates for all his titles retroactively – the hand-embossed pieces of paper that, back then, we would have required to get into the online part of our program.

Now a lot of people would just chalk their timing up to bad luck, and assume a company, even Oasis, would leave them in the lurch. But because Barry had faith and wrote us such a nice note, I went to the mailroom

(AKA, my living room), got out the embosser, and hand-made five certificates for Barry and put them in the mail.

Fast-forward 7 years… Jason Reitman, the director of the movie Juno, is trolling through iTunes, where Barry is featured, thanks to those retroactive Oasis Tools of Promotion certificates. Reitman mis-types the title of a song he thinks he wants for the film and hears Barry’s song instead.

He emails Barry and asks if he can use it for the film. One hit movie, 600,000 soundtrack copies, and a flood of worldwide licensing requests later, and there’s your happy ending to this very nifty story.

Micah Solomon
President and Founder
Oasis Disc Manufacturing

P.S. Want to get your music in the Oasis Tools of Promotion? It’s included, at no extra charge, when you manufacture CDs with Oasis! Click here to receive complete information – plus you’ll get ten new tips on thriving in the music business and our brand-new catalog.

Oasis acts blow them away at Arlene’s Grocery

An astounding array of talented friends (more than 300 strong) turned up for the Oasis New York office’s grand opening last night. Thank you so much! The music was wonderful and it was great to see our friends at this event. There was lots of low-key schmoozing, and those who were here for the music and musical interaction were more involved than I’ve ever seen. The performers returned this love with a respect for the audience, knowing that they were performing for some of their best peers at this event.

I’m not kidding about this. Just one example: who’s the audience member looking so poetical below?

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He’s looking poetical because he is poetical: He’s Jack Hardy. Legendary songwriter Jack Hardy. Gracious enough to attend our event and keep the songwriters actually on the stage on their toes. This is the caliber of crowd we had.

Shanna Zell, the rapt audience member you see here, is our NYC rep and a wonderful up and coming musician herself.

The rest of this post tells the story of the concert and party. Hope you enjoy it!

—–Up first was the wonderful Jen Chapin Trio — Jen Chapin, Stephan Crump, Jamie Fox — who I had been dying to hear in person for the longest time.

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Next: Sean Altman, who also graciously emceed the event for us, and who the crowd just devoured. Even though I made you work clean, Sean.

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Next: Kenny White, who quickly had the Oasis staff in particular howling immediately by weaving his New York-centric view of the Blue Ridge into his opening number (not, perhaps, quite having fully digested his handler’s dossier on Oasis’ Virginia roots). No hard feelings, Kenny, you’ll work in this town again. I’m sure.

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And finally, Internet phenom Jonathan Coulton,

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who happily surprised many of us by proving he exists in the flesh, not just in the blogosphere, by showing up early for the soundcheck that wasn’t and staying to the not-bitter ending after midnight. Thanks to everyone! What a great night.
–Micah
Micah Solomon • President • Oasis Disc Manufacturing • www.OasisCD.com • (888)296-2747

PS: I hope you’ll be sure to come visit our New York office: 250 West 57th Street Suite #1218 (W57th and Broadway, The Fisk Building) when you have a chance! Our new local number is 212-395-9460.)

Again, thanks to: Bob W, Courtney, Steve L and tv in addition to the usual wonderful Oasis suspects. This thing wouldn’t have worked without you.

Oasis NYC Office Opens in Midtown!

Thanks to you–it’s happened!! In the early days of Oasis, there really was no way I could realistically think that one day we’d proudly fly our flag right in the heart of New York City.

But through the years, as we’ve grown, New York’s creative community has been very supportive of Oasis, and today I am proud to announce the opening of our newest Oasis office at W. 57th & Broadway! We are proud to be sharing a suite with a great NYC-based institution, Woody Guthrie Publications. Here are the coordinates for this new Oasis office, which now joins the other Oasis offices in the Blue Ridge Mountains (Sperryville, VA), in the Washington, D.C. area (Springfield, VA), as well as our plant in South Jersey (Delair).

Oasis Disc Manufacturing
250 West 57th St.
Suite 1218
New York, NY 10107
212-395-9460
http://oasisCD.com

Shanna, our local NYC Client Advisor, is busy getting things rolling in the new office. If you have any questions or need a quote for a CD project, call our NYC office at 212-395-9460 or just stop by!

Thanks so much for making this possible–Micah

Clients Boost Musician’s Emergency Fund

The musicians we work with at Oasis may well be the most charitable in the world! This is based on my unofficial reckoning as follows: Every time our clients fill out a survey at the end of a manufacturing project, they have the option of forgoing a very nifty Oasis Disc Manufacturing T-shirt and instead have Oasis donate the equivalent value to the Jazz Foundation of America’s Musician’s Emergency Fund (which helps musicians trying to get/stay on their feet in the continuing economic freefall wrought by hurricanes Katrina and Rita).

So far, the vast majority of Oasis clients filling out the survey have chosen the donation: 378 in just the last few months, in fact! When Wendy Oxenhorn, Executive Director of the Jazz Foundation, received the resulting donation check, she wrote the following letter, which really goes out to you – all 378 of you!

“Kindness and generosity for the elders of jazz and blues and the musicians of New Orleans and nationwide encourages not only all of us who are working together to help, but also the musicians themselves. Our ability to help is because of you, and for that we thank you.” –Wendy