The Freeway Philharmonic

A reader recently passed along the following link about the Freeway Philharmonic, a new movie based on the lives of San Francisco Bay Area musicians, and I am amazed that I haven’t seen this before. This movie completely ties into the various phenomena that I explored in my 2007 series Road Warrior Without an Expense Account (soon to be available in book form).

Check it out: www.freewayphil.com – be sure to check out the trailer link on the left sidebar!

The various facets of the freelance career, from the staggeringly high number of miles driven by many freelancers to the repeated heartbreak caused by years of auditioning, down to the sporadic joys of the actual act of performing seem to be well-documented in this movie. I love the description in the movie trailer recounting how musicians will often complete a concert, then all simultaneously jump in their cars and drive an ungodly distance to do another concert with the same musicians in a different venue. This kind of thing happens to me all the time!

I’m curious why these folks don’t also put the trailer on YouTube. I understand wanting to have people come directly to the site to view a clip (after all, they’re trying to sell copies of the movie, and viewers need to visit the site to get this information), but my experience has been that putting up a clip like this and including a clickable link to the main site in the text ends up driving much more traffic and, ultimately, more interest.

Anyway, this movie sounds pretty much like required viewing in my book–you’d better believe that I’ll be plopping down my cash for copy!