AWAKENING THE AIRWAVES: new assignment, footsoldiers!
Howdy Footsoldiers!
First off, I just wanna say that this post is very important to me, and more importantly, I believe your attention to it (and action thereafter) would mean a lot to the guys. This is your chance to stand up and be counted - your chance to spread the movement, to take these songs to new lives and hard drives. To share what we've been given. To give back.
"Awakening", as most of you already know, has been released, after much anticipation, as the second single from "Oh! Gravity." I love the grinding guitars that sit so well with lyrics about wanting to wake up kicking and screaming. You love it too: we ran a poll a while ago for which song you wanted to be the next single, and "Awakening" won by an overwhelming majority, and Tim thanked you for your involvement.
As your fellow footsoldier, I hope you aren't content with loving it and keeping it to yourself. After all, such a powerful anthem about coming alive is worthy of as many ears as possible. Hide it under a bushel, oh no: we're gonna let it shine. Now, before you call in to your local radio station, here are 5 golden rules from industry veterans, that we would do well to follow:
1) The song is out at Hot AC... please focus your energies towards this format for now, instead of the other formats.
2) Please be respectful and low-key (no fangirliness, no fan-like enthusiasm - it's better to have them think you just casually like the band).
3) Call only your local station, and not more than 1 request every 6 hours, please.
4) We will be maintaining a regularly updated list of radio stations that are already supporting "Awakening", below (so you might wanna bookmark this post) - please call in and request only at these stations, to help build the story. We should not be calling stations that are not playing it yet, because that's exactly how stations know there is a campaign...
5) If you've heard the song already on the station, it's always good to mention that, and that you liked it.
Here's the list of stations playing the song. We would appreciate it if someone volunteers to find the phone number(s) or the request webpages of the stations (where it's not been provided below), thanks! Just leave it in the comments section of this post, and we'll add it to the list.
Wherever possible, it really helps to go to the station's website, and send an email request or web-request asking to hear the song. That way you could do it even if you're not in the same city as the station.
Last but by no means least, Switchfoot just officially released this new, self-made and self-funded music video for "Awakening" (with the video quality improved and the A/V sync issue in the earlier leak resolved!) If you've linked to / embedded that unofficial YouTube upload which did the rounds a few days ago, you might wanna update those links/codes with this proper release!
Reading through some mixed reactions on the official message boards, I was contemplating blogging my thoughts on the video and why I love it, until I saw how Tim briefly but nicely expressed what I may have needed a 1000 words to do: check out his "about the video" posting here, and spread the word about the video too! Embed the video on your myspace, blog or website, share it with your friends, and if you have free time on your hands, watch it 2351273209 times on YouTube, and leave comments - we should log as many hits for the video as possible, especially at the outset, so we can get it on YouTube's category rankings for the day and thus bring it more exposure! Let's set this snowball rolling, fellow soldiers!
If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments section! Thanks for reading. And adding to the noise. peace,
I still don't care for the video, though I appreciate Tim's thoughts. I'm sure he read the boards before writing them. He's a very concise and considerate, it's not bad he's very good at explaining things eiter. We're lucky to have him around.
@rose - ha, sorry, I realize that it sounds like I agree about your opinion of the video. I love the video. I was talking about what you said about Tim being concise and considerate.
Yeah I definitely appreciate Tim taking the time to explain where they're coming from. It helped me respect and understand the video more, even if it's not my favorite.
@Mutka, I knew what you meant. - I only hope that the video does take them new places, and brings new appreciative fans. My biggest issue with the video was the actors, I'm not a fan of their movies/shows.
@arpit dude, think you could post the awakening video on your blog? that would be great - we're trying to get the word out as far and wide as possible!
@jill, G, and any other bloggers reading this, we'd love to see a post on your blog with the awakening video embedded... :)
Phil - I'm planning on doing it tomorrow along with the entire bootleg and some pics with a link to the review here (hopefully :p)... but seriously I think I should have it set to go for tomorrow.
yeah yeah, I'll blog it, even though it's not my favorite video. I was actually thinking of playing another bootleg track on my podcast at some point, because, well, because I like Switchfoot. Maybe I'll switch up the schedule and play one this week and then talk about the new video, etc. That would probably be more effective, because I have more podcast listeners than blog readers. Fun fun...
And since I'm already typing a long comment, may I stray a little off-topic and recommend that everyone check out an ever-talented musician called Dabney Morris:
jonathan, is that a Hot AC station? have you heard them play it? the single is available to all stations, but we're trying to list only those that have played it at least once. thanks!
I got the word out on facebook, myspace, and my blog. I also have "watched" the videos several times. (I just play it, put it on mute while I do other stuff....I cant watch the same video too many times, as cool as it is, I get sick of it and I dont want to get sick of this video!!)
Oh and dont forget to vote on TRL people! I would love for them to be on tRL!!!! wohoooo!
oh my bad...yeah i'm not sure that they have played it yet. I just saw that station on a list of stations that had the song. I just mentioned it because it is a big station in my area. Thanks for the strategy update though.
Another radio station playing it is Way-FM in Florida. (I listen online, and it just popped up in my music-survey thing.) The link to listen online is http://wayf.wayfm.com/on-the-air/listen_online.php
I'm not sure if 100.3 in Albuquerque is playing it. I live in Albuquerque and have requested it twice. The first time I got an email reply from the DJ saying he would play the song if they had it, the second time a different DJ played meant to live soon after my request.
Shady's back...