Limited run, 4 color insert plus additional download card.
Includes unlimited streaming of 24th Street Blues
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 2 days
$25USDor more
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Includes an alternate solo version of the song "Desperate" not found on the vinyl LP.
Includes unlimited streaming of 24th Street Blues
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 2 days
$12USDor more
Book/Magazine + Digital Album
A 58 page Illustrated songbook including musical notation and tablature. Each song is accompanied by a unique painting or drawing by Deirdre F White. Extensive liner notes and more!!
Includes unlimited streaming of 24th Street Blues
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 2 days
$30USDor more
Purchase the 24th Street Blues Illustrated Songbook + Vinyl and SAVE!!
Includes unlimited streaming of 24th Street Blues
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 2 days
$50USDor more
Book/Magazine + Digital Album
Purchase the 24th Street Blues Illustrated Songbook + the Compact Disc for $35 Dollars and the CD is only $5
Includes unlimited streaming of 24th Street Blues
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 2 days
$35USDor more
Streaming + Download
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Down on 22nd street
there’s a deep hole in the ground
It won’t be there much longer now
man, just take a look around
Right next door the gleaming tower, stands so clear and stark
Sixty people lost their homes it barely left a mark
Try and square the circle but the pieces just don’t fit
And the Mission is on fire, and there’s some people getting rich
Downtown in some paneled room
they're looking at the plans
Working on the optics, now
pouring drinks and shaking hands
you can say ‘but for the grace of God’ and calculate the cost
to stay and fight the battles when the war’s already lost
Someone’s sitting on a goldmine, just waiting for the pitch
and the Mission is on fire, and there’s some people getting rich
Out on 29th street now
it’s happening again
The sirens wail, the buildings burn
flames are dancing in the wind
Folks just go about their business, as the afternoon drags on
They're coiling the hoses, another city block is gone
But the sun will rise, the smoke will clear, the birds will start to sing
It’s just a simple sacrifice, one more burnt offering
Here come the lawyers and the landlords, and you can't tell which is which
and the Mission is on fire, and there’s some people getting rich
Like a Lion
My old man he came in like a lion
He ain’t going out like a lamb
Most days now I get so tired of trying
I’m just doing the best I can
I knelt, I rang the bells I poured the wine
Professed my faith at least a thousand times
But I always hedged my bet,
it ain’t done nothing for me yet
Crossed my fingers, crossed my heart, crossed the line
My old man he came in like a lion
He ain’t going out like a lamb
Most days now I get so tired of trying
I’m just doing the best I can
I headed west to leave myself behind
It’s a tricky thing to slip the ties that bind
You know that blood’s a heavy thing,
there’s a sadness it can bring
Not a day goes by when it don’t cross my mind
Give me silence give me sleep
Soft and gentle dark and deep
When I wake I’ll have nothing to outrun
At the end of the day
I might think I know what to say
But words can’t change the things we know we’ve done
I tried to see the world in black and white
So simple, cut and dried, just wrong and right
Now all that’s certain fades away
All I see are shades of gray
I keep an open heart and hold on tight
My old man he came in like a lion
He ain’t going out like a lamb
All these years he just keeps trying
He’s just doing the best he can
I’m just trying to be like my old man
-- When speaking of San Francisco these days, it seems like it is stereotypically presented as either a city full of young tech nomads lining up for artisanal coffee, or as a blighted, urban hellscape of fentanyl zombies and street crime. But with his sixth solo album 24th Street Blues, Tom Heyman sings of a more rank-and-file San Francisco, balancing the encroaching darkness of an overdeveloped cityscape with the fragile, abiding beauty of the Golden Gate City.
“If you stay in one place long enough you really start to see it change.” He explains, “Around 2010, the city started to feel like a movie that was sped up, jerking and lurching forward at a dangerously fast, celluloid-shredding pace with market forces feeling like a locomotive bearing down on anything or anyone in its path.”
For over two decades, Heyman and his wife have lived in a sprawling, dilapidated, converted-storefront rental on 24th Street – deep in the heart of San Francisco’s Mission district. 24th Street Blues details his observations and interactions from years of living and working in the neighborhood as it weathered the storms and the aftermath of plutocratic expansion. When listening to the hardscrabble sagas that thread these songs together, it doesn’t sound like Heyman deliberately sought to create a concept album so much as he inadvertently followed the Mark Twain credo, “Write what you know.”
Here, the characters of his songs strive to exist (and sometimes perish) under looming cranes that dot the city skyline. Heyman braids timeless sounding singer-songwriter narratives with Barbary Coastal Americana that at times recalls the rusty, boiler-room reverberations of The Basement Tapes or the smoldering boogie of JJ Cale. Other moments are reminiscent of Gordon Lightfoot’s beautifully sparse melodies and John Prine’s penchant for an economy of words. Over mostly acoustic tapestries, Heyman sings stories of displaced families, endangered bohemians, migrant workers, sidewalk hustlers, surviving musicians, juvenile delinquents, weathered barkeeps, junkie friends, unhoused encampments, cannabis farmers, and slumlord arsonists.
24th Street Blues arrives packaged with a 60-page songbook comprising lyrics and music charts accompanied by a gorgeous collection of paintings and drawings that were designed as companion pieces for each song. These were created by Heyman’s wife Deirdre F. White, an artist and educator acutely tuned into composing images of modern dystopian inequality and the housing/mobility challenges of the American West.
In addition to his solo work, Heyman has spent many years as a sought-after journeyman guitarist and pedal steel player recording and touring with a varied array of artists including John Doe, Alejandro Escovedo, Chuck Prophet, Penelope Houston, Roy Loney, Hiss Golden Messenger, Sonny Smith and Kelley Stoltz . His pedal steel playing is one of the distinct sonic threads woven through many of the songs on 24th Street Blues. The record was produced Mike Coykendall (M. Ward ) and mixed by Scott Hirsch (Hiss Golden Messenger).
24th Street Blues presents portraits of a San Francisco where dues are never paid in full, but flowers still bloom from the ashes of the digital goldrush. Like any good long-player, these songs work a deeper magic on the listener with repeated listens. His lyrics take residence in the periphery of your mind like the spectral passages of a Denis Johnson novel. Whether he’s darkening the doors of the city’s Victorians or sharing a drink with a veteran bartender, Heyman has haunted the enduring and evaporating pockets of San Francisco’s heyday long enough to become one of the living ghosts of his own songs.
credits
released October 6, 2023
Recorded by Mike Coykendall at Blue Rooms, Portland OR
Additional recording by Adam Rossi at AR Audio, San Francisco, CA
and Doug Hilsinger Mobile Rig at Bohemian Neglect HQ, San Francisco, CA
Mixed by Scott Hirsch at Echo Magic, Ojai, CA
Mastered by John Greenham at Clearlight, Los Angeles, CA
Music transcription and tablature by Adam Perlmutter
Design by Brian Mello
Book layout and art photographed by Justin Frahm
Paintings and drawings by Deirdre F. White
1. 24th Street Blues
Tom Heyman vocals, acoustic guitar, pedal steel guitar
Rusty Miller piano, bass
Scott Hirsch percussion
2.Desperate
Tom Heyman vocals, acoustic guitar, baritone guitar, slide guitar
Mike Coykendall acoustic guitar, bass, percussion
Rusty Miller drums, percussion
3.Barbara Jean
Tom Heyman vocals, acoustic guitar
Mike Coykendall 12 string guitar
Rusty Miller drums, bass
Mike Brenner lap steel guitars
Greg Loiacono harmony vocals
4. Sonny Jim
Tom Heyman vocals, acoustic guitar
Rusty Miller acoustic guitar, piano, bass, drums, percussion
Mike Coykendall percussion
5. Hidden History
Tom Heyman vocals, acoustic guitar, pedal steel guitar
Rusty Miller piano, percussion
6.The Mission is on Fire
Tom Heyman vocals, acoustic guitar, 12 string guitar
Mike Coykendall 12 string guitar
Rusty Miller bass, drums
Mike Brenner lap steel guitars
7. Quit Pretending
Tom Heyman vocals, acoustic guitar
Rusty Miller piano
8. Like a Lion
Tom Heyman vocals, acoustic guitar, pedal steel guitar
Rusty Miller bass, organ, percussion
Mike Coykendall drums
Greg Loiacono vocals
9. Searching for the Holy Ghost
Tom Heyman vocals, acoustic guitar, baritone guitar
Mike Coykendall acoustic guitar, bass, percussion
Rusty Miller drums, percussion
10. White Econoline
Tom Heyman vocals, acoustic guitar, pedal steel guitar
Rusty Miller drums, bass
11. That Tender Touch
Tom Heyman vocals, acoustic guitar, pedal steel guitar
Mike Coykendall 12 string guitar
Rusty Miller drums, piano, bass
12. Desperate (Redux)
Tom Heyman vocals
Rusty Miller piano
supported by 7 fans who also own “24th Street Blues”
This is a great record n hearing Steve with only his acoustic guitar I can only imagine how an acoustic show with Steve sounds, this is fantastic n gives me goosebumps when I hear it ichafino36
Jody Stephens of Big Star and Luther Russell of the Freewheelers team for a radiant LP packed full of slide guitar and pop smarts. Bandcamp New & Notable Sep 11, 2019
Soulful guitar interplay form the heart of this lovely Americana collaboration from Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 2, 2018