MICHAEL T ROBERTS
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News/Blog

Campaign is live! Help us make the 'I Like Flowers' music video

5/19/2025

 
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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.
Take me to that campaign!
In addition to the video—which we actually put some real time into, so it'll be worth your while—you'll find:
  • The story of 'I Like Flowers' 
  • How this project will benefit climate action, conservation, and education in the Bay Area 
  • Our budget and timeline
  • Some neat-o perks you can get with your donations, including an official thank you in the video, discounts and benefits with our partner organizations, and even a nifty 'I Like Flowers' T-shirt

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! 
No really, take me to that campaign
Questions or suggestions? E-mail me: [email protected]

Coming Soon! "I Like Flowers" music video crowdfunding campaign

5/2/2025

 
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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...

Eco Soul Spring Fling on Saturday, March 22

3/5/2025

 
Bay Area friends! 

Please join me and Will Hammond, Jr of Eco Soul Entertainment—that's the snazzy new name for our eco-music collaboration—for a free afternoon of live music and climate action in Berkeley!

We'll perform our eco-tunes (I’m Your) Heat Pump and (Our Love Is) Geothermal with The Radioactives—first time ever with a full, live band—along with a bevy of funky soul favorites. My boy DJ Hank Roberts will be spinning as well! 

While you're there, learn how you can take action for the planet with representatives from Rising Sun Center for Opportunity, The Switch Is On, Citizens’ Climate Lobby, and an induction cooking demonstration with Copper. We’ll have snacks, drinks, and nature-themed activities. Drop by and have some fun with us!  

Saturday, March 22, 12:00-4:00pm2727 California St, Berkeley, CA
https://www.2727.today

FREE
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Bringing Joy to Climate Action with Mike, Will, and a Drag Queen named Pattie Gonia

2/10/2025

 
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Podcast listeners! My "Heat Pump"/"Geothermal" partner Will Hammond, Jr and I are featured on the most recent episode of Climate One, from the Commonwealth Club. 

Listen on Apple Podcasts
Link to episode home page

They talk about us in the intro, then our interview begins at 30:27. We talk climate action, music, and one of my favorite things, the Climate Venn Diagram. 

In between is a great interview with—indeed—environmentalist / drag queen Pattie Gonia. I highly recommend listening to it. Pattie has a lot of astute insights into climate action (my favorite: "Joy is strategic") and, as you might imagine, a fascinating backstory. 
I checked out their website but I'll admit I couldn't stay long, as I was too intimidated by their amazing talents and accomplishments. I realized quickly why they are the sole headliner on the episode! I'll have you know, however, that the podcast producers told us our songs gave them the idea for the episode. So we've got that going for us (even if Yo-Yo Ma didn't play on our songs). 
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Mike and Will: also on the episode

A Christmas song for you

12/23/2024

 
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Kirkwood Meadow, CA: View from a snow-hike nearly one year ago
Happy Season, everyone! 

Quick story: back in the 90's my Heat Pump / Geothermal partner Will Hammond, Jr. wrote a song for singer Tara Kemp ("Hold You Tight") that went to #3 on the Billboard charts. This year Will and Tara teamed up to record some Christmas tunes, and their cover of the Donny Hathaway classic "This Christmas" features yours truly on guitar (starting about a minute in).

It's a great version of a great (and underappreciated) Christmas song. I hope it will help make your Christmas a very special Christmas!

This Christmas on YouTube
This Christmas on Spotify
This Christmas on Apple Music
​
P.S. If your tastes run a little more traditional, there's always this little blast from the not-too-distant past. Twelve years old and still makes merry! Joyous Yuletide, my friends. 

(Our Love Is) Geothermal

9/27/2024

 
So this came together pretty quickly.

In my last post I mentioned that KQED’s story on (I’m Your) Heat Pump had recently aired on NPR. Turns out that story was heard by one Jamie Beard, Founder and Executive Director of Project InnerSpace, a non-profit dedicated to advancing geothermal energy (a 24/7 renewable that often flies under the radar but deserves to be in the power conversation alongside solar and wind). In July she sent me an e-mail with the generous subject header, “The heat pump song is amazing,” and an admirably concise body text: 

Can I get you to do a geothermal gig as a follow on. Would love to discuss. Debut at NY climate week.

Jamie
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Labor Day, September 9: tracking vocals chez MTR. Laying track before the speeding train.
So we have a call the following week, July 25. Turns out NY Climate Week is only two months away. Jamie ideally wants a song and a Heat Pump-like music video by September 24. And I’m about to go on a two-week family vacation.  

“That feels a little tight,” I say, tamping down panic, “but I can put you in touch with Polytechnic Marketing, who produced the Heat Pump video”—thinking they will of course tell her that’s way too little time. “Great!” she says, “please do that.”

​“Great!” Polytechnic tells her. “We should be able to swing that—assuming Mike can write the song fast enough.” OK then! Two intense months later (including a two-week vacation with lots of time thinking about geothermal), we not only have a song and music video once again featuring the inimitable Will Hammond Jr., but Will and I even debuted the song live at NY Climate Week this past Tuesday, at Project InnerSpace’s Geothermal House event in downtown Manhattan. I am a little tired. 
There’s so much more to tell you about—not just the whirlwind trip to New York, but also our trip to LA to shoot the video two weeks ago. We were fortunate to be able to reassemble the entire creative and production team from the Heat Pump video, including directors Ed Ng and Keoni Mars, and the crack team at Polytechnic led by Joel Boardman and creative director Tanya Spanier. Though it produced some stressful days along the way, I feel so lucky to be have been able to do this again so soon after the launch of (I’m Your) Heat Pump.
​
So I’ll tell you more in an upcoming post, but for now, please enjoy the song and the video! Once again, be forewarned: it shamelessly leans into the many double entendres provided (this time) by geothermal technology. It’s what Jamie wanted, I swear.
One More Link to the Video: Press This
P.S. As you'll see, Ed and Keoni had me dance (on camera!) this time (those FOOLS!). Here's Will and I learning some moves from our outstanding choreographer, multi-hyphenate talent Monroe Cline:
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September 13, video shoot at Orbital Studios in LA. Lava guitar. Coolest object in the universe. They did not let me keep it. Photo courtesy of Tanya Spanier.
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September 24, Geothermal House: Hall des Lumieres in New York City. Courtesy Project InnerSpace

"Heat Pump" World Tour

7/19/2024

 
“(I’m Your) Heat Pump” has been doing some world traveling since the video dropped on Earth Day this spring. 

NPR
Pumpin’ USA! “Heat Pump” went nationwide when the KQED radio story by Laura Klivans aired twice on NPR: first on Here and Now in May, then just this past week on All Things Considered. Juana Summers knows who I am! 

Weather.com 
Our YouTube views tripled in just a couple days, and I was surprised to receive an interview request from Weather.com, The Weather Channel website! (Weather and climate: not the same, but related!) Here’s the lovely article (and some video interview clips, live from the deck) by staff writer Jan Childs.
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https://weather.com/news/climate/news/2024-07-18-heat-pump-global-warming-electrification
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https://x.com/drvolts/status/1786098998773964853?s=46&t=uEPnIaHadrMMvjb-rVlZCg
X
Dave Roberts (no relation) of the Volts podcast, well known in climate circles for his great show on climate tech (I am an avid listener), gave the video a sweet shout-out on Twitter. ​​

Down Under
A nice fellow named Brent Clark, from an Australian company called Wattblock, asked me if he could use the song for a video he’d put together: Beautiful Heat Pump Installs for Sydney Apartment Blocks (Wattblock promotes building electrification in Sydney). Why not? They really are beautiful. 
What’s Next
As the Weather.com article noted (breaking news alert!), I have been playing with ideas for a song about induction cooktops. And it’s true, the ideas have not exactly sprung forth the way the Heat Pump tune seemed to, but that is to be expected and all part of the creative fun. Sequels are hard. I have one idea that’s good but maybe sounds a little too much like an ad, and one pretty weird idea that could either be great or terrible—not sure which just yet. A singing heat pump was pretty weird too, so I might be on the right track.  

Meanwhile, and not too unrelatedly, I have been working on setting ritual texts to music for The Ancient Order of Druids in America. Also collecting text ideas and starting to write music for a Wheel of the Year songbook—like a set of Christmas carols but for the Solstices, Equinoxes, and cross-quarter days. Recently I set the Sara Teasdale poem, Dusk in June (for the Summer Solstice, of course). I'll share that music down the road! 

Keep on pumpin', everyone. 

(I'm Your) Heat Pump music video has dropped!

4/22/2024

 
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Happy Earth Day, friends! I'm very excited to announce the official debut of the (I'm Your) Heat Pump music video! 

You can watch directly on YouTube, but I recommend checking it out via this entertaining blog post on the history of the song from Friday Apaliski, communications director for The Switch Is On. As Friday relates, it was a conversation she and I had about a year ago that spawned the unlikely idea of writing music about home electrification. She has been the song's biggest advocate every step of the way, and the video would not have happened without her and the entire Switch Is On team. They hired a great marketing firm here in Berkeley, Polytechnic, who in turn hired the crack video team at Be Media to direct and produce the video, and they secured a corporate sponsor (Mitsubishi - you may notice their equipment prominently featured, and that's cool because I am a happy Mitsubishi heat pump owner myself), AND they did it all in what I understand is record time. ​
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It's been such a whirlwind that I have neglected to share this great piece on the song that aired last month on KQED (SF public radio - the largest NPR station in the country, I'm told) by climate reporter Laura Klivans. 

Vocalist Will Hammond, Jr. and I also appeared on a recent podcast by Impact Alpha, which reports on climate investment (but went a bit outside their norm to report on a certain seductive heat pump). Our portion starts at about the 18-minute mark. 

It was a thrill to officially premiere to video for a live audience on Saturday, at the sold-out Wild and Scenic Film Festival here in Berkeley, hosted by my chapter of Citizens' Climate Lobby. Lots of good laughs in all the right places. It was very satisfying. 

Of course the goal here is the get the word out about the joys and climate benefits of heat pumps, so if you like the video, please share it with all your people! In addition to the Switch Is On post, you can share my posts on Facebook and LinkedIn if that's your thang. 
Please enjoy some additional photos from the April 10 video shoot! Some are mine, some come courtesy of Polytechnic creative director, Tanya Spanier (another major champion of the project). 
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Golden Tiger gets into wardrobe
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Will, Mike, Friday, and Tanya, all smiles just seconds after wrapping
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Will Hammond appears larger than life at the video's debut on April 20.
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View from behind the (very cool robotic) camera

(I'm Your) Heat Pump

2/23/2024

 
So: this past fall I decided to write a song about a heat pump. A heat pump with a whole lotta love to give. Coincidentally, around that time I happened to be talking to science writer Susan Mashiyama, who wanted to write an article about heat pumps. She decided to make the article about the song. 

It’s a longer story than that, of course. Fortunately Susan is really good at telling it. 

So here it is. The story was published a couple days ago in Berkeleyside, a Berkeley news site that’s pretty popular with the locals. 
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Read the Article
I don’t think I’ve talked about it much in these blog posts, but climate advocacy has been a big part of my life for the last several years, and promoting home electrification (i.e. replacing gas appliances with efficient, climate-friendly electric ones) has been a big part of that. As you’ll hear in the song, I had a lot of fun bringing that world and my musical world together. I got to channel my love of old school R&B, along with my 13-year-old sense of humor (still highly active). Susan mentions Marvin Gaye and Barry White as influences; true, though the biggest was probably D’Angelo (think Brown Sugar era, circa 1995). 
Listen to the song (with lyrics)
The ultimate goal: an awesome music video. Plans are in the works. Stay tuned. 

The article mentions the non-profit The Switch Is On; I’ve been one of their electrification ambassadors ever since we replaced all our gas appliances with electric ones a few years ago. They’re a great resource for learning about home electrification, especially if you’re in California. (Another great resource, this one nationwide, is Rewiring America.) 

Please enjoy some heat pump love!

Do You Like Flowers? (Seeds, Part 2)

9/3/2023

 
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If so, then you might enjoy this song I wrote for the Radioactives (and recorded in demo form):
I Like Flowers
Do you know the Teddy Pendergrass song, Get Up, Get Down, Get Funky, Get Loose? The vibe of the music is lighthearted, but if you listen closely to the words, they’re deadly serious. 

What is Teddy deadly serious about? Partying. He is singing this song for a purpose, and this purpose is to let you know in no uncertain terms that he is here to party, and he is going to party come hell or high water, and if you are in Teddy’s general vicinity you had better get down to business and start partying too. (Threats are never specifically issued but, I believe, are implied.)

So I wondered: what if a Teddy-like funkster sang with equal seriousness about their passion for the delicate, many-splendored beauty of flowers? 

Please note that I wrote this song for Will Hammond, Jr. to sing, but this is me singing on the demo, and I am not half the singer that Will is. I am just trying to point the way for him. Someday I hope you’ll get to hear it the way it’s meant to be, but I got impatient and wanted to share it with you. 

I hope you like it as much as I like flowers.
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