Tom Heyman Talks ’24th Street Blues’ Album, Live Dates And More

You have released your new album ’24th Street Blues’ which is out now. How did you want to approach the making of this album and did you have a concept in mind?

I definitely still think in terms of albums. The title of the record comes from a lyric of a song of mine from two records ago (The record is “That Cool Blue Feeling”, and the song is “Number Nine”) I just thought the phrase “24th Street Blues sounded like the title of a record.

My process, and I am using that word very loosely, is usually to take a look at what songs I have written, see what direction they are leaning towards, and then to write some more songs that are somehow sonically or thematically leaning in the same direction. With “24th Street Blues” I had written a couple of songs that were really about the neighborhood, specifically “The Mission is on Fire” and “Quit Pretending”. I knew the record was going to be called “24th Street Blues” by then, and once I wrote the actual song, the rest of it kind of fell together.

Where did you record the album and who produced it?

I recorded the bulk of the record in Portland, Oregon at a studio called Blue Rooms. The record was produced by Mike Coykendall (owner operator of Blue Rooms). I knew Mike from San Francisco where he had a band called The Old Joe Clarks. Mike moved to Portland soon after I moved to SF. He produced M. Ward’s breakthrough record “The Transfiguration of Vincent” worked in M. Wards band for about 10 years, as well as producing/recording Beth Orton, Bright Eyes, Blitzen Trapper and a bunch of other folks.

Do you have any interesting, funny or memorable stories from the recording sessions?

My friend Rusty Miller, who played so beautifully on the entire record (bass, drums, piano etc.) had a sort of mystery malaise while we recording…just not feeling right through bits of it. A week after we got home to SF, he went to the emergency room and had a couple of stents put in…his mystery malaise was a widow maker style heart valve blockage!! He just plowed ahead through the recording. Not really funny, but kinda interesting I suppose.

Where is your hometown and could you please describe it in five words?

I was born in Brooklyn New York, but I really grew up in Montclair NJ going from kindergarten through high school (Joe Walsh of the Eagles and James Gang went to my high school and graduated in 1965, Richard Lloyd of Television also attended my high school, as did his friend Albert Anderson of Bob Marley and the Wailers fame, so… lots of guitarists… 5 words. Nice.Place.To. Grow.Up.

Now if only I could finally just grow up…

Do you have any live dates planned in the UK/Europe for 2024?

Yes. I will be on tour with Dan Stuart of Green on Red in March:

13.03.24 BRISTOL Hen & Chicken

14.03.24 HIGH WYCOMBE Kingsmead House Concert

16.03.24 SHEFFIELD Greystones

17.03.24 YORK Rise @ Bluebird

18.03.24 BIRMINGHAM Kitchen Garden Cafe

19.03.24 DURHAM Old Cinema Launderette

20.03.24 LONDON What’s Cookin’ @ Leytonstone Social Club

21.03.24 BRIGHTON Prince Albert

23.03.24 TWYFORD Swiss Cottage (sold out)

One track on the record is ‘Barbara Jean’. What was the story/inspiration behind this track?

Around 2008 my mother-in-law was diagnosed with dementia, and my wife Deirdre had to take that on. It is a traumatizingly draining experience to navigate the system, while taking care of someone as they become more and more physically and mentally impaired. It was incredibly hard, and your own life takes a backseat to the immediately shifting landscape of the disease. I had the experience of anyone who becomes a caregiver in mind when I created the character of “Barbara Jean” .

I wanted to ask you who designed/created the artwork for the album?

All of the paintings were created by my wife Deirdre F. White, who is a fine art oil painter, and also teaches painting and drawing at City College of San Francisco, and the University of California, Davis.

How do you look after your voice?

I quit smoking about 16 years ago and I quit drinking about 11 years ago (I smoked and drank with real gusto for many, many years). I think my voice is in pretty shape as a result.

Do you have any favoured stage instruments, effects, pedals, microphones?

I have a lot of guitars… acoustics and electrics. I am pretty fond of a Joe Glaser B-bender equipped parts telecaster, and an Inca Silver Creston telecaster that has a Bigsby tremolo arm on it. I have a 1939 Kalamazoo acoustic flat top guitar that is in a bunch of photos…I actually play it a bunch and it is fairly incredible. It is so old that it weighs nothing…I really love my Milkman F-stop pedal that has reverb on one side and tremolo on the other. I never want to turn the tremolo off.

Another song released as a single is ‘The Mission Is On Fire’. What is the background behind this song?

My wife and I have lived on the eastern end of 24th Street in SF’s Mission District, for more than 20 years now.

I work at a bar near the corner of Mission and 22nd Street and a number of years ago (pre-pandemic) there were a series of devastating fires on Mission Street, two of them practically next door to my workplace, and another about three quarters of a mile south at 29th Street. Fires in a densely populated city full of attached wooden houses are scary enough, but add in the scarcity of affordable housing, the simmering resentments around the huge influx of tech workers and the white-hot real estate market, and the overall effect was pretty unsettling. The phrase…”the Mission is on fire”… popped into my head, and I knew there was a song there, and I chased it down until I thought I had it.

In addition, the track is accompanied by a music video. What was the thought process behind the video?

The video was shot, directed and edited by my friend Bill Shupp, and we wanted to catch the essence of my Mission District neighbourhood, while showing the devastation of the fires. I was able to get some pictures of the big fire at the Mission Market at 22nd and Mission, and some actual video of a later fire on 29th Street. They bookend the video. 8 years later there is still an empty lot at one fire location, and above market rate condos where another one was.

Was it a difficult album to write?

My life is a series of ever-expanding procrastinations…so they are all difficult to write in their way…the fear of the blank page is real!!

What makes Tom Heyman happy and what makes you unhappy?

Playing live, making a meaningful connection with the audience, taking a couple of chances and playing a good show all make me happy.

The way that art (whether it be music, painting, writing, film, acting…and so on) has been reduced and devalued so much that it is truly thought of as nothing more than ‘content” makes me unhappy.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot that the US and other Western countries current slide, slowly but surely, towards autocracy and authoritarianism also makes me unhappy.