Like the proverbial duck in water (uneventful above, action-packed below), I've been developing a bunch of exciting projects without a whole lot of finished product to quack about on the socials.  I'm not one to count my ducklings before they're hatched, but I'd love to tell you just the littlest bit about what I've been working on in 2026...

We would love to turn them into music videos as well, and are in conversations with potential partners to that effect. But we plan to release them as streaming audio—and play them live with The Radioactives—whether or not there are firm plans in the video department. Whatever happens, as ever we are 100% committed to using the power of the boogie to get people psyched about climate solutions! ​

I've been teaching ukulele classes to 3rd-8th graders at Ecole Bilingue de Berkeley since 2018, and I've been a certified Hawaii-phile since 2001, when my brother gave me the best Christmas gift ever: my first uke and a copy of Jumpin' Jim's Gone Hawaiian.

For several years I've been developing a new curriculum that utilizes elements from role-playing games and board games to turn my students' learning into an adventure through the Hawaiian archipelago. Based on real Hawaiian culture, ecology, and music with a dash of fantasy, it has evolved into a massive and wonderful world-building exercise that feels surprisingly close to the experience of writing my opera (way back in 1999-2002), Lotus Blooming in a Sea of Fire.  Much like that experience, I have become a little bit obsessed. Unlike that project, I do not have 24/7 to devote to it. Progress has been incremental. 

​So I'm happy to report that this year I've taken a big leap forward, creating several physical assets for the game: a custom game board and multiple sets of cards for allies, adversaries, and power-ups. ​ I'll be trying out these new elements with my classes this year! Stay tuned for further updates. 

So far I've set much of the AODA's standard daily and seasonal rituals to music, designed primarily for solo singers (Druids are a mostly solitary folk these days) with or without accompaniment. I started these settings well before officially launching my Adept project, simply as a way to memorize the rather lengthy AODA rituals. Works like a charm! I've recorded many of the chants myself, accompanied by a shruti box, and shared them with my fellow AODA members. 

​The second half of the project is a series of songs for celebrating the Wheel of the Year, a set of eight traditional festivals (Solstices, Equinoxes, and "cross-quarter" days like Beltane, aka May Day). All AODA members are required to observe the solstices and equinoxes in some fashion, and many like to celebrate the cross-quarter days as well. Who doesn't love a festive occasion? But, how festive can it really be without music? And have you ever heard of an Autumn Equinox song? Not I. (OK, maybe September by EWF counts.) 

Everyone knows that Christmas music is best thing about Christmas (except maybe the cookies). So although it will be a drop in the bucket compared to the immense canon of Christmas classics, I'm endeavoring to get the ball rolling with my own Wheel of the Year Songbook—like a set of Christmas carols for the eight festivals. So far I've been utilizing timeless texts by the likes of Sara Teasdale, Robert Frost, and John Muir that speak to these different times of year.

In fact, I've already shared one of them: Sing Before Night, a setting of the Sara Teasdale poem Dusk In June, for the Summer Solstice.  This is one of the more involved songs musically, but all are designed to be singable by regular people, with relatively simple chord progressions for easy accompaniment on piano or guitar.  I shall record more of them as soon as I can—stay tuned! ​

Come join me, my Eco Soul bro Will Hammond Jr, and our five-piece band The Radioactives at Rising Sun's annual celebration next Thursday! We'll be playing a full set of Eco Soul tunes (I'm Your Heat Pump and more) and funky soul favorites. 

Thursday, September 17, 5:00-8:00pm (we'll play early)
2323 Broadway, Oakland, CA
Admission $5-100, sliding scale
Delicious food and beverages included!

Rising Sun Center for Opportunity is an amazing Bay Area non-profit that hires and trains local youth in climate-related careers like energy and water efficiency, heat pump installation, and much more. Will is a former Rising Sun recruiter, and we remain big fans of their work.  Please come support us while supporting them! 

Eco Soul music videos I Like Flowers and (I'm Your) Heat Pump will be screened at next Saturday's Wild and Scenic Film Festival in Berkeley! The event is at the David Brower Center, April 25 at 7:00pm. If you enjoyed these videos on your tiny screen, you'll love them on the big screen—and with a real audience laughing (or groaning) along with you. The rest of the short environmental films are always fantastic and uplifting. I will be there to introduce our videos — hope to see you there! 

I can tell you without any bias whatsoever that this is the premiere Bay Area event for learning all about heat pumps, HP water heaters, induction stoves, solar and batteries, and much more. So your free admission will be totally worth it. 
​
I will be emceeing, and (I'm Your) Heat Pump will be screened on a loop in the auditorium between presentations! 

FREE registration is requested, but not required. ​Happy electrifying! 

The Radioactives performed said Eco Soul tunes and more (headlined by (I'm Your) Heat Pump, of course), at Monday's Heat Pump Week flagship event at the Center for Architecture and Design in San Francisco (where we took the delightful photo below).

​That's right, it's #HeatPumpWeek, people! Get psyched! 

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! 
​

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

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! 

• 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! 

Thanks 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. 

Instagram
LinkedIn
Facebook

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

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!