Jimmy Fallon shares stories from his whirlwind, celeb-filled night honoring 40 years of Saturday Night Live.
LEGO Announce First-Ever LEGO Building Sets Inspired by Scooby-Doo
At the British Toy and Hobby Association Toy Fair the LEGO Group today announced its partnership with Warner Bros. Consumer Products to develop a collection of LEGO® building sets inspired by the timeless and beloved animated franchise, Scooby-Doo™. Five new building sets will bring the zaniness of classic characters including Shaggy, Scooby and the entire gang to life in LEGO form for the first time ever, and are scheduled to hit store shelves in August.
Fans will instantly recognize all of their favorite Scooby-Doo characters and icons, including Scooby, Shaggy, Fred, Daphne, Velma and the Mystery Machine, as well as all the ghosts, goblins and other villains that make Scooby-Doo adventures complete in sets such as the Mummy Museum Mystery, the Haunted Lighthouse and the Mystery Mansion. LEGO Scooby-Doo products range from $14.99 to $89.99 (USD) and will be available in toy stores nationwide beginning in August.
In another first, the Scooby Gang will be animated in LEGO form. In 2015, fans can look forward to a 22-minute LEGO special, featuring Scooby-Doo, and produced in partnership with Warner Bros. Animation. In addition, Warner Bros. Animation will also be producing made-for-video movie titles, which will be released by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment in the coming years.
“Fans always wonder which properties may come to life in LEGO form, and this year we are thrilled to bring all of the mystery, humor and hijinks of the Scooby-Doo universe to life in LEGO toys and animated content,” said Jill Wilfert, vice president, licensing & entertainment at The LEGO Group. “We constantly review properties to find those with global reach, great characters and stories and inherent building and role play opportunities, and we think that Scooby-Doo delivers on all of these while also driving strong appeal among collectors and today’s parents who have strong nostalgia for the LEGO brand from their own childhood.”
“Scooby-Doo and his whole Gang are known and loved by kids and adults alike around the world and we are proud to partner with LEGO Group to continue to entertain new generations of fans and bring everyone’s favorite Great Dane to the unique interactive world of LEGO play,” said Karen McTier, executive vice president, Domestic Licensing and Worldwide Marketing, WBCP.
“As animators, we always aim to find fun and inventive ways to connect with the audience and tell new stories with our characters,” said Sam Register, president, Warner Bros. Animation and Warner Digital Series. “Scooby-Doo and LEGO fans share so much affection for the characters and the brand, and we are so pleased to finally bring these two worlds together.”
David Carr on Thinking We’re All Frauds
You are always told to recover for yourself, but the only way I got my head out of my own ass was to remember that there were other asses to consider.
I now inhabit a life I don’t deserve, but we all walk this earth feeling we are frauds. The trick is to be grateful and hope the caper doesn’t end any time soon.
– David Carr, The Night of the Gun
Shel Silverstein on Working And Being Alone
“I think you are the one I have been waiting for,” said the missing piece. “Maybe I am your missing piece.”
“But I am not missing a piece,” said the Big O. “There is no place you would fit.”
“That is too bad,” said the missing piece. “I was hoping that perhaps I could roll with you…”
“You cannot roll with me,” said the Big O, “but perhaps you can roll by yourself.”
Shel Silverstein, The Missing Piece Meets the Big O
Skrillex on finding that perfect drum sound
I don’t want to be mysterious (and) of course I’m not giving away anything either—part of the fun of being a producer is having your own sound. But for me, the drums are simple. It’s all about the three pieces that make a really nice drum sound. You need a nice transient in the beginning, and then the note around the 200-hertz frequency that gives it that boof, and then a tail, which can be anything. I usually start with a 909 and compress it to get the harmonics of that 200-hertz note, and then take maybe one or two really good-sounding locked drum samples that don’t conflict with any of the harmonics in the 909. You want to tune it at about 200, and shave off a lot of that stuff above 200, and then you have this live-sounding hybrid 909. Then you take a clap or a china [sound] and shelve it off super high, and add some reverb to it and then print it as one. Balance it while you print it, and then you re-compress it from there and you have a snare drum.
There’s one thing about audio too. I think the biggest piece of advice I can give anybody about audio is don’t pretend to be a snob. — Skrillex, iZotope
Vintage Pepsi Ads From The 1960s
Pepsi took the common step in the 1960s to proclaim itself as the refreshing drink to use on a hit day at the beach. A few others have done the same, but Pepsi’s wholesome image is perfect with the brand, as seen here in their “Pepsi-cola Cold Beats Any Cola Cold!” campaign. 
You Can Now Create Your Own Selfie Doll
Eternize yourself, your mate, or your entire family (Counting your pet as well)! The look-alike Selfie Dolls made by Mahinarium are made after real people, with keeping the characteristics of a doll as well! All you need to do is to contact them, send them a few pictures of the person you would like to have a look-alike of, describe him or her in a few sentences to make sure the doll mirrors him as much as possible. They make a raw concept, and send it to you in e-mail. The clothes and accessories on the body like eye-glasses are handcrafted, too. The height of the Selfie Dolls is 30 cm, but you’ll feel like a giant to have your own doll.
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Jason McCoy of The Road Hammers: “Fans are #1”
Since he’s a performer at heart, it’s only natural that Jason McCoy’s career would have a a number of influences and subject matter. It was both the traditional country of Merle Haggard, Buck Owens and Charlie Rich, as well as the Urban Cowboy country of Mickey Gilley and Johnny Lee that set McCoy on his artistic quest, “Country music speaks to me,” says McCoy. “That whole Mars-Venus connection – what men want, what women want — just seems to be dealt with better in country music. What I really like about country is the classic period of the ’70s, that dealt with drinking, cheating and other things on a level of emotional honesty whether it’s better or worse. That’s who we are as people. Country is the new rock, it’s the largest format in the world right now. I’ve always listened to George Jones, Willie, Merle and all the classics growing up but started to get into more rock and roll when I was an adult in my 20s.”
Eric: A lot of these country artists that are your age or my age – our 20s [laughs], grew up with the classics artists like Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. But when you talk to country artists today, their influences are those, but they’ve added Led Zeppelin and AC/DC.
Jason: Old country is Garth. Which is cool, they’re born in a different year and it is what it is. For me, I look at country as the new rock and roll. I’ve been blessed to be able to do this closing in on thirty years and our music has evolved, but the thing that never wavers, no matter what the age or no matter what the fanaticism is or whatever the trend is in country is the nucleus of the country fan never changes. I don’t care if you were 30 years old in 1982. I don’t care if you’re 30 now, or 18. The country fan, the heartbeat of what country music is, it’s called the people’s music and there’s a reason for the. I don’t care if you’re talking about newer bands like Blackjack Billy or Doc Walker. Country music is a full encompassing genre and the fans who are into it like the stories of the songs.
Eric: Why do you think that is? When audiences go to festivals, like Boots and Hearts, just north of Toronto, they like everybody on the bill. Even Jazz isn’t like that, Jazz has divisions. You’d never get that in country music, you have it in Folk music. There’s a real sense of community.
Jason: You just said it, it’s community. A lot of people say this, but the reason we do it is because it is true. It’s about the fans creating that community or the party and we’re just the soundtrack for it. The country way of life is always there. This country is built on rural roots. It’s just the soundtrack for the common people and right now it’s the hottest format in the world because it’s crossed some pop elements in it’s production, etc. For us, speaking topically, we released this song “Mud” and it went gold. It’s a huge download and the reason being is because we get out there and we know that there are all these people who are 18 years old to 40 years old who have a jacked up jeep who love to get out and play in the mud. These are my neighbors! I live on a farm, I like that and so we’re like, we’re the soundtrack of what they like to do and what I like to do. Just common people stuff, that’s country.
Eric: Pete Townshend from The Who says that as well. The Who just held up a mirror to their audience.
Jason: Yeah, look at “Teenage Wasteland.” They were singing to their audience, right? I write all sorts of stuff that I want it to connect, from kids songs to rock and roll stuff.
Eric: Tell me about writing kids songs!
Jason: I’ve got two kids. 8 and 5. Daughter is 8 and my son is 5, and I write songs with them. I have a backhoe on the farm and my son who is 5, him and I wrote a song for the backhoe. They love it.
Eric: Let’s change gears a bit. The Road Hammers split up for a time.
Jason: I was a solo artist and had wonderful success at that and just started this is as a lark, for fun, to do a trucker album and CMT turned it into a reality show and the creation of a band and the thing debuted at #1 and turned out we’re the highest selling Canadian country band in history. It’s mind-numbing. It’s all just following our heart and having fun.
Eric: What do you think the band gave you that you couldn’t do yourself?
Jason: I like writing really aggressive rock and roll and rock and country stuff, and I can’t sing it. Clay, he’s all that. He’s the rock star. It’s great, because another thing it gives me is goal posts. I can write within the Road Hammer goal posts and I know exactly what a Road Hammer is and what it’s not. But talking about the band just exploded, it was amazing, took us to Nashville, and one thing led to another and the record label we were signed with eventually folded into another label, went bankrupt and then there were lawyers and were kind of hung up for a couple of years and our hearts go broken. We just had to take a break, that’s as simple as it is. The business eclipsed the creative and it just sucked the life out of us for a while.
Eric: When you got back together, was there an elephant in the room that had to be dealt with before you started working together?
Jason: No, it was gone. We were really lucky.
Eric: That must be so irritating when record label politics come into the business of art for you. It’s has to be so heartbreaking to know that the possibility of success has changed over situations out of your control.
Jason: We were ready to go ahead with another record and the label just got caught up in the paperwork of shutting down, it was owned by lawyers, we should have seen that coming. It just went into purgatory for a couple of years. It really did break our hearts because you can’t do anything. You can’t even dream of having the ambition of saying – OK, we’re going to record an album and when this is all over we’ll release it. At the time we were told, nah, you’re hung up forever. We’re lucky, we had something on the other side of it and it worked out OK. But some of these young artists get signed, it’s painful to watch. Really painful. But we’re back on the road. Fans are #1. Talk about amazing. Those fans are amazing.
The Road Hammers on tour
May 29 Grande Prairie Stompede 2015 Grande Prairie, Canada
Jun 19 Summer in the City Steinbach, Canada
Jun 26 Ciderfest Stoney Creek, Canada
Jul 04 Elliot Lake’s 60th Anniversary Elliot Lake, Canada
Aug 02 Boot Hill Country Jamboree Bothwell, Canada
1975 Pink Floyd ‘Comic’ Tour Book
In 1975, Pink Floyd sold a ‘comic’ tour book that has become a collectors item since it’s publication for the famous Dark Side Of The Moon tour. Here are the original pictures, and an added bonus, at the bottom of this page, you can download all the large images to view at your leisure while listening to the classic album.
You can download your own program here.
The Only Full Interview Tim Curry Gave About The Rocky Horror Picture Show
This is is the only full interview that Tim Curry gave regarding his portrayal of Dr Frank-N-Furter in the 1975 cult film The Rocky Horror Picture Show, reprising the role he had originated in the 1973 London and 1974 Los Angeles stage productions of The Rocky Horror Show. Recorded during the week that the film was released in 1975, he talks about his roll in the film and whether or not he would play the part again. Don’t try and adjust your computer – this was filmed in black and white. Today, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is the record holder for the longest theatrical release in history — it continues to play in theaters across the United States.
By the way, the show’s writer, Richard O’Brien’s original script for the stage musical The Rocky Horror Show was only 40 minutes long. The hit song “The Time Warp” was written to fill up space, according to co-composer Richard Hartley. Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger asked to play Frank-N-Furter in the film. The creative team turned him down in favor of the musical’s original star, Curry.
