MORE EQUAL UNION  DOT COM

June 16, 2009

The popular and award-winning LGBT website Bilerico Project featured Sean Chapin and the LGBT civil rights album More Equal Union.  Donna Pandori from the Bilerico Project described Sean as "a talented musician, video artist, and strong advocate for LGBT equality," and considered the song "Together As One" as a "hip little number."

June 7, 2009

Sean Chapin Releases Music Album to Raise Money for LGBT Civil Rights

More Equal Union will champion and fund the continuing fight for LGBT equality.

San Francisco, CA, June 7, 2009 – Musician, videographer, and YouTube advocate for LGBT civil rights Sean Chapin announced the release of an original music album in support of the gay rights movement. The album, titled More Equal Union, was released for sale on iTunes in the United States on May 6, 2009, and all proceeds from album sales will be donated to Lambda Legal, a national organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and those with HIV.

"Sean has created a moving album that reaches deep into our collective yearning for equality, and he touches us with the strength of music clearly born from the rights we briefly held but are once again denied,” says Stuart Milk.

More Equal Union’s thirteen songs range in style from pop and rock to electronica and folk, and they address LGBT issues including marriage equality, open service in the military, gay adoption, hate crimes, workplace discrimination and anti-gay bullying.

“In the spirit of diversity, I incorporated many different genres to appeal to a range of musical tastes,” says Chapin. “My goal is to increase awareness among both gay and straight people of the true breadth of issues currently affecting the LGBT population.

Conceptually tied together, the songs of More Equal Union introduce a fictional gay family (Ethan and Jacob). Beginning with their first meeting, the album tells Ethan and Jacob’s story as they react to the forces around them and meet a tragic end.

“Stories inject humanity and emotion into a cause, and I hope that the story behind this album helps listeners better relate to the songs,” says Chapin.

Included in the album is track “United We Love,” a folk song reviewed favorably by gay lifestyle website Queerty.com. Chapin performed “United We Love” live in front of 10,000 attendees at the San Francisco Join the Impact rally last November.

The album also features the pop ballad “Your Time Has Come,” which contains excerpts of speeches from Rev. Troy D. Perry, Robin Tyler, Willow Witte, and Stuart Gaffney and John Lewis. The speeches were delivered at the San Francisco Eve of Justice Rally in March 2009.

“This is what equality sounds like,” says Gaffney.  “In More Equal Union, Sean Chapin has given voice to a movement, and what a beautiful voice it is!”

Chapin has also self-produced music videos for some of the album’s tracks, incorporating footage he shot at LGBT-related events over the past year. The videos include “Grand,” a rock song celebrating same-sex marriage, and “Promise,” a slow ballad and parent’s ode to a newborn child, both of which were reviewed favorably on the web.

With the release of More Equal Union, Chapin hopes to sell 10,000 copies and raise $100,000 in proceeds for Lambda Legal. He also wants to change minds about the issues affecting LGBT people.

“Sean allows us to feel our community's desire for inclusion and to hear our unified cry- that our love will not be denied, that we will not be silent, that we will no longer hide, and we will not diminish our hope nor our pride," says Milk.

“When the California Supreme Court removed the ban on same-sex marriage last may, I felt like an equal Californian for the first time in my life,” says Chapin. “The passage of Prop 8 in November shook me to the core. That Election Day changed me, and I want to one day experience full equality, not only in California, but across the United States.”

More information about More Equal Union, including audio previews and music videos, can be found on the official website at MoreEqualUnion.com.

The official promotion video can be found on YouTube at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Apoy_5HAv6U

About Sean Chapin:

Sean Chapin is a songwriter and videographer who has documented the LGBT civil rights movement in California since the passage of Proposition 8 in November 2008. Videos on his YouTube Channel “SeanChapin1” have accumulated over 1 million total views and have been posted on LGBT and LGBT-friendly websites including Towleroad.com, JoeMyGod.com, Queerty.com, AmericaBlog.com and PerezHilton.com. Additionally, Chapin’s videos have also been linked to by The New York Times, Time, and The Huffington Post.

About Lambda Legal:

Lambda Legal is a national organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and those with HIV through impact litigation, education and public policy work.

June 2, 2009

The album "More Equal Union" has been officially published on iTunes for sale at $9.99 for the album and $0.99 for each individual song.  There will be an official press release coming out in the next week.

To find the album on iTunes, click here. 

May 10, 2009

The popular gay lifestyle website Queerty posted an article showing a YouTube video of the Leffew Dads with their mom together on Mother's Day as well as the music video of "Promise" that features the Leffew family over the last half-year.  Queerty also gave a mention to the soon-to-be-released More Equal Union album.  Per Queerty, "catch the Leffews in the music video for Sean Chapin's "Promise," a song off the record More Equal Union that's scheduled to drop this summer and whose sales will go to Lambda Legal."

May 9, 2009

The music video to the song "Promise" premiered on YouTube and has been added to the Music Videos page of this website.

The song is about a parent's ode to his/her newborn child, promising that the parent will look after the newborn throughout his/her childhood and adult years while the parent is alive.  The song is inspired by gay adoption bans currently in place in a few states in America.

The music video features footage from the Leffew ("depfox") family - a family of two husbands and their son and daughter - from Santa Rosa, CA, who started filming their ordinary lives after Prop 8 passed (i.e. opening XMas gifts, celebrating birthdays, coloring Easter Eggs, bedtime prayers, etc.) and posting their videos on their YouTube channel to show that families come in many forms and all deserve equal civil rights.

May 6, 2009

The album was officially mastered and submitted to TuneCore.com for processing for sale on iTunes.  The album will appear on iTunes approximately 4 to 6 weeks from today with a projected go-live date of June 17, 2009.  The final songs have been uploaded to this website and can be heard on the Audio Previews page.

May 2, 2009

The music video to the song "So Long" premiered on YouTube and has been added to the Music Videos page of this website. The song is about a widower's grief over his late husband who suddenly passed away.  The song is also a statement that all people--straight and LGBT--know the meaning of love.  The music video was shot on a Saturday morning at Ocean Beach in San Francisco under rainy conditions.

April 26, 2009

Production on the album More Equal Union has been completed, and the songs have been sent out for professional mastering.  It will take approximately 2-2.5 weeks for the mastering to be completed.  The final pre-mastered versions have been uploaded to the Audio Previews page.

April 23, 2009

The music video to the song "We Will Be Free" made its premiere on YouTube and has been added to the Music Videos page of this website. 

The choral piece, a solemn prayer of hope, was inspired by the life of Harvey Milk and specifically the Memorial of George Moscone and Harvey Milk in San Francisco held on the 30th Anniversary of their assassination, and the performances by the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus at the memorial inspired me to arrange this song as an a cappella choral piece. 

The music video features footage of lighted candles from the Light Up the Night for Equality vigil in San Francisco, the Candle Vigil Rally in San Francisco the day after the 2008 Election Day, and the Milk Moscone Candlelight March.

April 20, 2009

The award-winning LGBT blog Towleroad featured the official promo video to the album More Equal Union as part of its daily "Guide to the Tube" series. 

In the words of Towleroad: "Activist Sean Chapin launches musical quest to raise money for LGBT civil rights."

Towleroad has featured a number of Chapin's videos, including the NOM Gathering Storm response video and Day of Decision promo videos. 

April 20, 2009

The award-winning LGBT blog JoeMyGod featured the just-released music video to the song "Grand" and provided links to the album More Equal Union album. 

In the words of Joe: "Reliable JMG reader Sean Chapin just handed in a fantastic tribute to same-sex marriage, his original song Grand, which includes video of a gay marriage ceremony at San Francisco City Hall. It's gorgeous, for real, please turn up your speakers."

JoeMygod has featured a number of Chapin's videos, including the Milk Moscone Memorial montage video and Dare to Stand reponse video.

April 19, 2009

The official 40-second promo video for the album "More Equal Union" made its debut on YouTube.  The video lays out the three goals of the album, which are (1) sell 10,000 copies on iTunes, (2) raise $100,000 for Lambda Legal and (3) change 1,000,000 lives about gay people.  Short clips of eight of the 12 songs on the album are included in the soundtrack of the promo video.

April 4, 2009

More Equal Union dot com has debut a video titled "The Story of Ethan and Jacob" on YouTube.  The video is a retelling of a conceptual fictional story of Ethan and Jacob, a story line that threads the 12 songs on the More Equal Union album.  The narration of the story includes portions of instrumental versions of all 12 songs that coincide from the beginning to the end of the album.  More information about the story can be found on the website's The Story of Ethan and Jacob page.

April 19, 2009

The music video to the song "Grand" made its premiere on YouTube and has been added to the Music Videos page of this website.  The grunge rock song is a celebration of new-found freedom for same-sex marriage.  The song inspired by and written a few days after the CA Supreme Court overturned the state ban on same-sex marriage in May 2008.  The music video features footage of a wedding at San Francisco's City Hall in 2008.

April 9, 2009

The popular gay lifestyle website Queerty posted an article called "A Queerty YouTube Anthology of Gay Protest Songs".  The article featured the music video of "United We Love" and described it as "a Prop. 8 music video with shades of Joni Mitchell tossed in for good measure. He performed the song at a Join the Impact rally held in San Francisco on in November to a crowd of almost 10,000 people."

The song is a wedding vow to a loved one and message of unity and love to society at large.  The song was inspired by and written days after the passage of Prop 8 in California, and I performed the song the following Saturday in front of 10,000 people at the Join the Impact rally in San Francisco.

The video footage was from the Candle Vigil Rally held in front of City Hall in San Francisco the evening after Election Day in November 2008 as well as the Protest March from the UN Plaza to the Castro on Friday Evening after Election Day.

Queerty also recently ranked Sean Chapin's NOM Gathering Storm response video as among the top ten video responses on the internet, saying that "the points he make [are] not just accurate, but heartfelt" and "gay rights groups should look at ads like these the next time they decide to create their own. They could learn a thing or two."

(Clarification: the Queerty website calls the song "United in Love", but the actual title of the song is "United We Love".) 

April 4, 2009

The official website of the upcoming music album "More Equal Union" for LGBT Civil Rights has been launched.  The website will undergo a building period over the ensuing few weeks, adding a number of different pages to showcase the album, including audio previews, music videos, song lyrics, and other fun pages.

January 5, 2009

(The following is one of four posts before the website launch that discusses the four songs that led to the birth of this album.)

"Together As One" is a song of acceptance of everyone regardless of sexual orientation at our schools and universities.  I was inspired to write this song in conjunction to an event called Equality on Campus Day sponsored by Students for Equality whereby everybody wore a designated shirt that promoted LGBT awareness and togetherness.  A contest decided the winning design which featured the phrase "Together As One".  It was at this time that I became serious about writing a full album for LGBT rights and came up with the album title, More Equal Union (a variation of "More Perfect Union", verbage that is featured in the US Constitution as well as one of President Barack Obama's famous campaign speech).

More Equal Union started as a ten song album.  Along the way, I came up with an idea of linking each of the songs together with a fictional story of a gay family that experiences the breadth of LGBT civil rights issues we currenty face (this story has become "The Story of Ethan and Jacob").  Over a span of two week in February 2009, I went through a prolific phase and wrote six songs, using music ideas that I had stored in my head over the years.  As I continued to cover the emergence of this civil rights movement in March 2009, I continued to flush out this storyline, writing two additional songs called "Your Time Has Come" (which has become a music video) and "Why".  The first draft of my album was completed on March 28, 2009.

December 23, 2008

(The following is one of four posts before the website launch that discusses the four songs that led to the birth of this album.)

"Stand Up" is a song about coming together and literally standing up for our civil rights.  The song is a re-work of an instrumental piece I had written in 2005 called "Morning After".  While "Morning After" has an ambient vibe, "Stand Up" takes these musical motifs and becomes a song of anxious energy and pulsating drive.  The song was included as the soundtrack to a video promo of Join the Impact's National DOMA Protest & Petition event in early January 2009.  This video promo was nominated for the HRC Los Angeles 2009 E-Hero Award.  The song was released as a single on iTunes in January 2009.

December 14, 2009

(The following is one of four posts before the website launch that discusses the four songs that led to the birth of this album.)

"We Will Be Free" is a choral song (and my first choral piece I had ever written) about overcoming injustice and continuing on our path toward freedom.  I was inspired to write the song after watching the movie Milk and covering the George Moscone and Harvey Milk 30th Anniversary Memorial, a vigil and march from San Francisco's City Hall to 575 Castro St., where Harvey's camera store once stood.  At the City Hall memorial was the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus (SFGMC) who performed a number of beautiful choral songs, including "Lord, Our Refuge", a piece that was song on the night of the assassination of Moscone and Milk in 1978 (this date also marked the 30th Anniversary of the first ever performance of the SFGMC).  I was inspired to make this song a choral piece after watching them perform.  I have since joined the Chorus in January 2009.  It was at this time that I flirted with the idea of writing an entire album with a theme of LGBT rights.

November 16, 2009

(The following is one of four posts before the website launch that discusses the four songs that led to the birth of this album.) 

"United We Love" is a song written on the Monday following the passage of Prop 8 in California on November 4, 2008, to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to legally marry in the state.  The passage of Prop 8 had a profound and dark impact on LGBT people and its allies, and during this time of darkness, I created the song from the revelation of the song title to producing a demo recording within a day, the fastest I have ever created a song from start to finish.  The following night I posted a music video of the song, using video footage of the candle vigil rally and protest march in San Francisco the week before directly following Election Day.  I posted the song and music video to numerous Join the Impact Facebook Event Pages, as the Join the Impact National Rally was occurring that Saturday, and I was immediately approached to perform the song at the San Francisco rally, to which I did in front of 10,000 in attendance.  The song was released as a single on iTunes in December 2008.