Talkin' to the King of CooCooRockinTime

David Fair’s wildly fun CooCooRockinTime album, originally released in 1990, has just been reissued as a 4-CD deluxe set by Thick Syrup Records. I caught up with David to ask him about that project, the group’s upcoming show—tomorrow night!—at the Creative Alliance, and his future plans.

The King of CooCooRockinTime speaks!

How did the CooCooRockinTime project come about? At the time (1990), you were officially retired from rock and roll, right?

Yes, I was trying to be retired from rock and roll. But it was very hard for me. I wanted out, but I also loved it at the same time. It was too much fun. For a couple years I had been out of it, but every time something real fun would come up I'd join back in. Like a show would come up playing along with a band that I'd like to see. So I was faced with the choice of paying to see the band or being paid to play the show. It was more fun and made more sense to just play. So I was trying to give up Half Japanese, but it was too hard. I finally decided that if I did something AFTER Half Japanese it would help me feel like I had moved on. I came up with the CooCooRockin project with that in mind. The idea was never to play out or anything. Just record one album and then that would be that.

It was originally released by 50 Skidillion. Did you ever meet Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller fame), who ran the label at that time?

We had met Penn a couple years before he was involved with the 50 Skidillion label. He was a friend of another friend of ours. He had written to us when we had only released our first little 7-inch record. We spent time with him in Maryland and stayed at his house when [Half Japanese] played in L.A.

As far as the reissue, why was it important to have other artists—R. Stevie Moore, Lurch & Holler, and others—record the entire album, instead of just a song or two?

I always loved the album. It came out at a time when 50 Skidillion was about to go out of business, so it didn't get heard the way it should have. I think that it's a really great album. After seven years, when the rights reverted back to me, I shopped it around a little bit and never really found a deal for re-issuing it until I found Thick Syrup. They are great to work with. I have done a few projects with them. They said that they'd like to do it. I suggested that it would be pretty cool to have other bands cover the whole album.

There have been lots of tribute recordings over the years where various groups will do a song on a theme or based on another band’s music. But they are always done the same way—everyone does just one song. I like the idea of saying, “Look, here is a batch of songs and songs don't just go one way. There are lots of ways to do a song. Here's a whole album full of songs and here are several ways to do them.”

It would have been cool to have a hundred bands do them, but as it is this project is a break even kind of venture rather than a money-generating project. Thick Syrup is great to do this. It's an expensive experiment. It's perfect for CooCooRockinTime because it's really all about the fun. That's what the songs are about and that's what the band is about and that's what the recording project and the upcoming show are all about.

Besides this Creative Alliance show, are more CooCoo shows planned?

There are no more shows planned after Saturday. In fact, this will very likely be my last time ever playing these songs. I am interested in switching gears and playing a different kind of music next. I love these songs and we know it's hard for me to quit, but I will do another project to help me.

All hail the king.

CooCooRockinTime with special guests including Lurch & Holler and Boister play the Creative Alliance tomorrow night at 8pm.