I had the opportunity to talk to Corey Fayman about his new book Black's Beach Shuffle - a great tale about murder, high tech vaporware, music, and other mayhem. With San Diego as the tranquil backdrop, Corey introduces us to a rich set of carefully crafted characters.
Can you tell us a little about yourself? I understand that you have worked in some pretty diverse industries and that you are also a musician.
I am a San Diego native and have lived here most of my life, with the exception of a couple of years in college and five years in Los Angeles trying to break into the music business. After that didn’t work out, I finished up college at UCLA and got my degree in Creative Writing, specializing in poetry. By the time I graduated, I was more interested in drama and theatre, and I finagled an internship at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego. Utilizing my background in music and audio, I managed to get the internship turned into a real job working as an audio technician and sound designer at the theatre. I also met my wife at the Globe. She worked as a stage manager at the time. During this time I also wrote two plays, one a musical (in a weird performance-art musical kind of way). Neither was particularly good.
Working at a professional theatre organization like the Globe was great, but after a few years I hankered to get back into the music business. I started writing songs again, and, after showing one of them to my brother, who had stayed in L.A. after the band broke up, we decided to try music again. We’d learned a lot of lessons the first time around and decided we had to give it another try.
For the next 10 years we played around San Diego with our band, Bad Dog. The band played original songs composed by my brother and me, as well as blues standards, soul, early funk and rock and roll. We managed to achieve some level of local success but alas no record contract ever happened (although I did get a couple of encouraging letters from Capitol).
Eventually, the late nights got too late and my brother and I decided to give up the business. Realizing that “playing bars for the last 10 years” was not a great resume item, I went back to college and got a Master’s Degree from San Diego State University in Educational Technology. Netscape went public the first year I was there, and the great Internet bubble was taking on air.
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