Clean up your Act with Bill Harley — and Oasis CDs

Multiple Grammy-award-winning musician and storyteller Bill Harley has teamed up with Oasis to help teach kids healthy habits this flu season. His latest effort is a singalong/public service announcement titled “Wash Your Hands (lávate las manos).” Bill first wrote the song for the Paul Cuffee School in Providence, R.I. The neighboring Massachusetts Department of Health then worked the (ahem) infectious tune into school programs around their state. At that point Oasis got involved, donating 1,000 CDs in our Green Forestry Practices packaging to help get the music and story to media outlets and schools nationwide. Happily, NPR picked up the story and the coverage has been excellent (including a feature on “All Things Considered”) — and timely. As the parenting site Common Sense Media writes: What parent isn’t sick and tired of hearing the phrase “H1N1” at every turn? Just imagine how your kids feel about constant reminders at home and school to “Wash your hands!” Well, now you can just push play on the CD player and let singer, songwriter, and storyteller extraordinaire Bill Harley do the reminding this time. In his latest single, “Wash Your Hands,” Harley works his usual stroke of story-singing genius to help kids fight the bug this flu season and all year-round. Have something you want to get out to the world, in a beautiful eco-friendly package? Click here to get a sample pack of all of Oasis’ eco-packages in the mail. From the classic Digipak to our handsome wallets, from the simplicity of CDs in sleeves to the revolutionary Potato Tray (a natural farm product that is biodegradable and compostable) and BottleTray (each order of 1,000 saves 400 discarded water bottles from ending up in a landfill or incinerator) – Oasis continues to be a pioneer in our industry, particularly when it comes to environmental practices and packaging. Remember, lávate las manos, and have a healthy holiday season!

Micah Solomon President and Founder Oasis Disc Manufacturing

P.S. Did you know that many of the leading-edge environmental packages in the market originated here at Oasis? See them for yourself! Click here for our complete eco-packaging “care package” — FREE.

State of the Indie CD Business

Listening to recent media chatter, you’d get the impression that most music is downloaded these days. Think again. Compact discs make up a full 80% of U.S. retail music sales (Wall Street Journal Tuesday, April 7, 2009, Page B4) and are the basic calling card and selling tool for every musician.

Why is the CD still dominant? One reason pointed out by Jupiter Research is that music lovers have noticed that compact discs remain “forward compatible” with whatever the latest music file format might be. Buy a CD from your favorite band and not only can you rip the music to your iPod, but you can also keep the disc as an archival backup.

Another reason, often commented on in psychological research, is that humans are gatherers by nature: we get a special thrill from collecting beautiful physical objects –books, magazines, stamps, antique china, paintings… the gorgeous artwork and packaging of a well-designed CD make it collectable, too. (To get a visual sense of how enthusiastic CD collectors can be, search Google images on the keywords “cd collection.”)

At Oasis, we’re constantly working to make our CDs and DVDs as attractive and collectable as possible. If you haven’t yet, please look through our catalog and check out the beautiful options we have to offer. If you don’t see your preferred look pictured, just call (888) 296-2747 and ask for Oasis Custom™. We’ll review dozens of unique packaging options with you, and cook up something that suits you perfectly!

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.

Christine Lavin’s XM Radio show shines spotlight on Oasis Sampler

FILE UNDER: OASIS CLIENTS HELPING OASIS CLIENTS

Christine Lavin – folk pioneer, founding Bitchin’ Babe,

and an Oasis CD client herself – hosts the XM Satellite Radio program Slipped Disc with producer Bill Kates. She was kind enough to send us a note recently saying that she’d be airing a generous chunk of the latest OasisAcoustic sampler CD on her show; the segment will air four times.

Tracks featured included “I Should Go” by Levi Kreis, “Ain’t So Green” by Carsie Blanton, and “The Starbucks of County Down” by long-time Oasis client Greg Trafidlo.

They also featured work by other long-time Oasis clients and friends such as Janis Ian and Grace Griffith.

Christine and Bill also discussed on the air Oasis as a manufacturer who “goes the extra mile” for independent music clients.

Thanks Chris!

–Micah

Micah Solomon

President, Oasis Disc Manufacturing

An Astounded Jenny Reynolds “wins” Oasis prize in Austin

At the poolside party in Austin where the grand prize Oasis Disc Manufacturing drawing was held, the winner was none other than incredible Arts supporter Vic Heyman, who — with no personal plans to start a recording career — later that night transferred his winning entry to local Austin songbird Jenny Reynolds. (Jenny is pictured above, astounded and claiming unworthiness for Vic’s gift.)

Jenny has two upcoming CDs (studio and live) and will be applying the Oasis prize to them.

See more re. the exciting Southwest Regional Folk Alliance conference (SWRFA) and other Oasis goings-on in Austin here.

Video/Blog:Oasis clients perform live from Austin

Here’s Oasis Disc Manufacturing client Jaime Michaels a few minutes ago

jaimemichaelclip2.mov

►

performing a mini-showcase in Austin, Texas, soon after the UPS truck pulled up with his brand new Oasis-pressed CD. Oasis is here in Austin participating in the annual Southwest Regional Folk Alliance (SWRFA or SWERFA, depending which way you lean), which sponsors these great little guerilla showcases for artists of all stripes.

There is nothing flashy about a Folk Alliance conference. The Fashion Police, luckily, don’t make rounds here, or they would have the whole lot of us rounded up and arrested for multiple violations. More importantly, there’s precious little snobbery here; this is as close to a level playing field as you’ll find in the music business.

The level of notoriety of the performers here ranges from not-so-much to nationally famous. At the very same time I was listening to Jaime and shooting this video clip, Grammy award-winning songwriter Jon Vezner* was performing a similar guerilla showcase literally next door, in similarly austere surroundings.

Louis Meyers, the Executive Director of the Folk Alliance and the legendary co-founder of South by Southwest, put it this way to me, earlier today: “If there’s one thing we have here,” Louis said, “It’s the songs. We may not have the flash, but we have the substance. And more and more, Nashville and LA are realizing this and are coming to these conferences looking for the hits — and licensing-friendly material — of tomorrow.”

*Vezner, in the classic “share the wealth” tradition of the Folk Alliance, in fact helps teach a new generation of songwriters at the Oasis-sponsored Songcamps run by Paul Reisler.