 Student crew members Amelie, Madison, Oskar, and Anna on set with mentors D'Adonis, Unni, and Monroe When we shot the “I Like Flowers” video in July, our directing mentor Ed Ng brought in a team of filmmaking colleagues to help guide our team. One of those was D’Adonis Moquette, who worked closely with our student director, 15-year-old (!) Madison Chau. D’Adonis produced this fantastic, five-minute behind-the-scenes video that I think you’ll really enjoy: https://youtu.be/HIp_RGGR2RI After you watch it, I think you’ll agree that it was a pretty special experience for our eight Berkeley High student crew members. Our many professional mentors—including but not limited to Ed, D’Adonis, Unni, Monroe, Jameson, and Elly—brought their expertise (and their gear) to create an unforgettable learning opportunity for our students. And now is when I ask you for some money. Because those professional mentors, though they generously donated their time, were not free. We covered their lodging, meals, and transportation—all items that were not in our original crowdfunding budget. Everyone except Ed was an unexpected (albeit most welcome) late addition. Will and I were not about to deny our students the opportunity to work with them, even if it meant going decidedly over-budget (about $2,500, if you were wondering). Would you be willing to help make up the shortfall? $5, $25, or whatever works for you would really mean a lot to us. Please donate here: https://tiptopjar.com/ecosoulentertainment 100% of your donations will support this project (and if we exceed our goal, the next one!). If you’ve already given through our crowdfunding campaign, thank you. Now that you’ve seen your donation was well spent, please consider adding a bit more. =) If you prefer to donate via another method, please e-mail me at [email protected]. In case you missed the final product, here’s the I Like Flowers music video! https://youtu.be/8A1oojuEFXk Thank you SO much for your support!  Jacob, Unni, and Madison on location at the Watershed Nursery
When you're done, you might want to listen to the song while working out, petting your cat, or meditating with your favorite flowers. Find the audio version at these (and many other) streaming platforms:
I Like Flowers on Spotify I Like Flowers on Apple Music  Very excited to announce the upcoming premiere of our third Eco Soul music video, I Like Flowers! Produced by a crack team of Berkeley High video students under the guidance of our Heat Pump and Geothermal director Ed Ng, the video is looking truly fantastic, and we can't wait to share it with you. Many of you on this list contributed to our crowdfunding campaign—thank you so much for making it possible. Are you in the Bay Area? You're invited to join me and Will this Saturday at the Willard Clubhouse in Berkeley for the world premiere launch party! As you may recall, I Like Flowers is all about native California plants, pollinators, and the joy of connecting with nature right in your backyard. At our launch party you can meet the students who created the video, hear from our non-profit project partners like Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour, take some wacky photos with our pollinator paparazzi wall, enjoy some drinks and homemade treats (courtesy of our students), and of course watch our marvelous new video. Hope to see you there! Are you not in the Bay Area? Don't worry, the video will hit YouTube next week! Stay tuned. Saturday, October 11, 7:00-9:00pm (video showing at about 7:30pm) Willard Park Clubhouse 2720 Hillegass Ave. Berkeley, CA FREE  Pollination all across the nation, y'all.  Hey all, please come out to San Leandro this Sunday to hear my band The Radioactives headline the Sun Day clean energy celebration! It's free, and promises to be a great time. We'll be performing our planet-friendly ditties, including (I'm Your) Heat Pump, along with a set of funky soul favorites. I can't wait! San Leandro Sun Day Festival Sunday, September 21, 11:00am - 3:00pm Boys and Girls Club of San Leandro 2200 San Leandro Blvd. San Leandro, CA 94577 FREE The Radioactives are scheduled to perform 2:00-3:00pm. Not in the Bay Area? Find a Sun Day event near you. Happy Equinox!  From last Thursday's show at Rising Sun Center for Opportunity's annual gala! The Radioactives to perform at Sun Day, September 21
• The US installed 50 gigawatts of solar in 2024, accounting for a whopping 84% of all new energy capacity? That's enough to power 8.5 million households. And it's because solar has gotten super cheap. Or that... • Battery storage costs have fallen 40% in the last year alone? It's pretty incredible, and definitely cause for celebration. My band The Radioactives (fronted by my Eco Soul bro Will Hammond, Jr) will be headlining the San Leandro Sun Day event, which has a lot of fun stuff going on in addition to music. We will of course be performing (I'm Your) Heat Pump, (Our Love Is) Geothermal, and—hot of the presses--I Like Flowers! The deets: San Leandro Sun Day Festival Sunday, September 21, 11:00am - 3:00pm Boys and Girls Club of San Leandro 2200 San Leandro Blvd. San Leandro, CA 94577 FREE The Radioactives are scheduled to perform 2:00-3:00pm. Not in the Bay Area? Find a Sun Day event near you. Happy Equinox! Mike and Will appear on Everyday Climate Champions podcast
Almost here! I Like Flowers music video
Eco Soul Entertainment on the socialsThanks to social media maven Will, Eco Soul now has a social media presence! Please check out our pages and Follow us—it will be a huge help to us as we look for more opportunities to get our eco songs out into the world and make new ones. Plus it's guaranteed fun! Thanks for connecting with us.  My own feelings about social media are similar to this sloth's. We both recognize that it's an inescapable part of today's communications environment, but we try not to get too caught up in it.  Time's almost up to support the 'I Like Flowers' video campaign! Despite a pretty amazing response from this list (thank you!) and elsewhere—42 backers so far—we are still short of our $10,700 goal, and we've extended the campaign to end this Thursday, July 3. So if you were on the fence before, now would be a great time to step up and make a donation! So what does it mean for the campaign if we fall short of our goal? We will very likely still be able to make the video. But we might have to cut corners with props, art, locations, etc. And we probably won't be able to pay our interns. Fortunately we advertised this as an unpaid opportunity, not knowing how much money we would be able to raise. Nonetheless, the team is working hard and sacrificing other opportunities to make this video. They deserve a little jingle in their pockets.
And their work has been awesome so far. We have nine interns from Berkeley High School, aged 15-18, and they are fully in the driver's seat on this project, filling the roles of Director, Producer, Cinematographer, Art Direction, Lighting, and more. Watching their creativity flow has been inspiring. They've thought of some pretty amazing ideas that would never, ever have occurred to me! Thank you for considering supporting them, along with the mission of this video to spread the joy of flowers, native plants, and pollinators. https://www.igg.me/at/i-like-flowers  Summer Solstice dawn today on Hilton Head Island, SC Happy Solstice!
Here is a short song for the occasion, a setting of Sara Teasdale's beautiful poem "Dusk in June." (Yes, I changed the title for the song, though I didn't change or omit a word of the poem.) I wrote this last summer after our annual June trip to Hilton Head, SC, recorded it in the fall, and held tight until I could share it with you today, this longest day of the year. To listen to "Sing Before Night" with the words and a little more personal background, go here. I hope today you can connect with the magic of nature in your part of the world, wherever you are!  That's a California poppy (or as close as I could get). I don't know who that guy is. We’re eleven days into the I Like Flowers crowdfunding campaign, and I’m please to report that so far we’ve raised $3,682 from 30 backers! If you’ve donated already, thank you so much. If you haven’t yet, please check out our fun campaign page and consider giving what you can to help us reach our (pretty ambitious) goal of $10,700. You’ll be supporting our Berkeley High student interns who will be filming the video, plus our four local non-profit partners working hard to support native plants and wildlife. You'll also be supporting our delightful artistic endeavors, of course. We've begun interviewing our intern candidates, and they are amazing! I’d like to highlight one of the perks we’re offering our donors: the official ‘I Like Flowers’ T-shirt! Totally original and available exclusively to donors of $200 or more, it’s my first T-shirt design, so if you don’t like it, please pretend that you do. See all available colors here. (By the way, you can donate $200—or any amount—without opting for one of our fine perks.) It would mean a lot if you would share the campaign with any flower-loving friends and family. Thank you! https://www.igg.me/at/i-like-flowers P.S. PRO TIP: Our campaign platform, IndieGoGo, will auto-populate your donation with a "tip" for them. Before you give anything, you should know they already take a not-insignificant cut of every donation. I've heard from donors who gave without realizing IGG had slipped a tip into their cart, so make sure you set the tip where you really want it to be.  FLOWERS. They're pretty great.  It's here! The I Like Flowers music video crowdfunding campaign is now live on IndieGoGo! Please head to our campaign page to watch our pitch video, learn all about the project, and donate to what you will learn is a most worthy cause. In addition to the video—which we actually put some real time into, so it'll be worth your while—you'll find:
Our campaign will be live until June 18. I would be so honored if you, my loyal newsletter readers, would be among our early benefactors. We've got a great project ready to roll—now we need you to put the fuel in our tank. We're counting on you to help us make this happen--thank you so much for checking out the campaign and considering a donation! Questions or suggestions? E-mail me: [email protected]
 I Like Flowers: not just a statement of fact. It’s also a song—and with your help, soon to be a music video. Eco Soul Entertainment—i.e. my collaborator Will Hammond, Jr and I—will shortly be launching our very first crowdfunding campaign, and we would love for you to join us! Here’s what to do: 1) Listen to the song. The audio's not quite finished, but pretty close. 2) Stay tuned for the crowdfunding campaign, launching (hopefully) next week! So what’s the deal with “I Like Flowers”? Since I first shared a sketch of this tune a couple years ago, it’s taken on a new life and a new mission: to do for native plants and pollinators what (I’m Your) Heat Pump did for heat pumps, and (Our Love Is) Geothermal did for geothermal energy: namely, make them fun. Make them catchy. Make people say, “Hey! I’d like to know more about that.” And just like Heat Pump and Geothermal, I Like Flowers will provide a nifty new messaging tool for organizations who support native plants and wildlife, starting locally with the Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour here in the East Bay. Their executive director, Kathy Kramer, was an enthusiastic early supporter of Heat Pump, even before it was a video. (And hey Bay Area people, this year's tour is this weekend!) Why is this message needed? Most people know that flower-loving pollinators like birds, bees, and butterflies are super important for ecosystems and agriculture. Lesser known, perhaps, is how crucial native plants are for supporting those pollinators and other wildlife. Studies have shown that native plants do way, waaaay more for wildlife than their non-native cousins. Supporting them in our gardens and in the wild is a great way to help heal Mother Earth. We need new ways to get the word out and engage the public on this issue. I think a funk anthem is just the thing, don’t you? For more on the importance of native plants, check out this great slideshow by ecologist Jennifer Dirking, or the Homegrown National Park website. And just a little reminder that everything is more fun with a music video... |
AuthorComposer Michael T Roberts shares his thoughts on writing, playing, and teaching music. Comments? Please e-mail Mike. Archives
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