Mongo Nation

Toronto’s hottest “Live Remixing” trio on music, tacos, DJ culture and GILFs!

Welcome to “Taco the Town”, the most delicious interview show on the Interwebs!

Because our studio is still a smoldering pile of ashes after our failed attempt to build a working volcano for the inter-office science fair, we’ll be talking to famous musicians, authors, comedians, weather-predicting groundhogs, actors, “exotic dancers” and life-size, 3-dimensional smurf people in the one place that everyone can agree on: The Taco Stand!

Today we’ll be talking to Keys N Krates, the Canada Land hipster band responsible for bringing the term “Live Remixing” into the vocabulary of music fans around the globe. DJ Jr Flo, Matisse and Tune were kind enough to eat tacos with us and discuss such hard-hitting subjects as the Candian health care system, reconfiguring our perception of what a live band is or should be, and how famous you have to be to f**k Paris Hilton! Check it all out right here, exclusively on CraveOnline!

It’s been real… It’s been fun… And dare I say it may have even been REAL FUN?!

By Jeremy Azevedo

Well, CraveOnline fans, I’m afraid I have bad news for you: Your favorite (?) writer and video producer, Jeremy Azevedo, is leaving, and he’s taking all of his multiple personalities with him.

That means no more Moses Amadeus, Pete Pelmo, Karate Chimp, The Most Pissed-Off Dude in the World, Creepy Office Guy, Ted Hucklebuck, Chest Rockwell, Stretchnuts, Dr. Science, Junkyard or BuckCherryFan420, either. I know; it’s like a national tragedy.

I’ll give you a moment to grieve.

All finished?

Good. Now dry your eyes and let’s take a walk down memory lane shall we? I’ve compiled a list of some of my best articles, videos and top 10 lists from my time here, so the 12 of you that actually read my stuff on a regular basis can maybe squeeze one last chuckle out of them before they’re lost to the void. Yeah!

(And P.S.: If any of you are at all interested in following me where I go next, feel free to email me at jeremyazevedo@yahoo.com)

Now, without further ado, here are the top 10 greatest hits from the 2007-2010 era of CraveOnline, henceforth to be referred to as the “Golden Era”:

How Do I Know If I Am A Hipster? - (Maybe the best thing I’ve ever written)

Jerkoffs You Are Sure to Meet in Art School - (And I should know, I was one. An art student, I mean)

An AIM Convo Between The Ultimate Warrior and Lindsay Lohan - (I’m still not convinced that this didn’t actually happen)

Really Bad Gifts to Give Your Co-Workers - (My favorite holiday-themed post!)

Celebrity PostSecrets Intercepted! - (One of my better Photoshoops)

Harry Potter to Appear in Every Movie, Retroactively - (More Photoshoop fun!)

Empire of the Sun: Walking on a Dream - (Probably my best album review, ever)

The Secret Millionaire’s Playbook Intercepted! - (I think I wrote this one in response to the bailout)

Millions of American Males Lining Up To Be Rejected By Megan Fox - (And yet, she keeps getting back with that dude…)

How to RAWK - (I’d like to point out that this pre-dates “Jersey Shore” by a year)

• Next page: Top 10 Videos of The Golden Era
• Next, next page: Top 10 Top 10 Lists of The Golden Era

Read the rest of this entry →

Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about Weird Al, but were too apathetic to look up on Wikipedia!

By Jeremy Azevedo

If there was any one person that I’ve always wanted to interview, it’d probably be… Hulk Hogan! But since Hulk wasn’t available, my next pick would have to be Weird Al Yankovic. (J/K, Al!) Weird Al was one of my earliest comedy influences, and is one of very few people (if any) that has managed to make a life-long career out of musical comedy.

And so it was with great pleasure that I had the opportunity to talk with Weird Al about everything from his recent “Essential Al” collection and James Blunt being named “one-hit wonder of the decade”, to the number 27 and whether or not Kanye West is a “soft target”. We even spoke briefly about whether or not he’d ever make anther movie like the cult classic “UHF”. (Spoiler: Not only would he, but maybe he already is?) Seriously, if there’s anything you’ve ever wanted to know about Weird Al, we probably cover it in this interview!

Are the songs on the “Internet Leaks” EP indicative of a new distribution model for your more time-sensitive parody songs?

Weird Al: Well, its kind of an experiment, you know? I haven’t really, until recently, taken advantage of the power of the Internet; at least in terms of being able to be more topical. My material, a lot of it, is timely and topical. And it would behoove of me to get it to the marketplace in a timely manner. And certainly the infrastructure exists in portals like iTunes to do that. I just wanted to see, to prove to myself that I could do that. When I did my T.I. parody, whenever it was, last October 2008, I was able to get my parody on and out while the T.I. song was still #1 on the charts. Which was something that I was never able to accomplish under the old model of, you know, write it and record it and then wait around several months until they actually could physically manufacture albums on discs. So its just something I’m playing around with. And as far as the originals this last summer, I had recorded them and I figured, you know, why just let them sit around, gathering dust on a hard drive for another year while I finish the album? Why not just get it out there and let people enjoy it now, and then it’ll be on a CD some time in the future.

For all the “Polkamaniacs” out there…

Plus then you can sell it twice, too.

Weird Al: Well, yeah.

Can you tell us anything about the next album that you’re working on?

Weird Al: Well, not a lot. I mean, 5/12ths of it is already out, and as far as the rest of it, I really tend not give away any secrets or surprises. So it’s not any radical departure from anything I’ve done in the past. It’s more parodies and originals and the kind of humor that you’d expect from a guy like me.

Can we expect a polka medley, then, maybe a song about food, and a song about television?

Weird Al: Ha ha! Well a polka medley almost definitely, for sure. As far as food and television, I try to… I haven’t stopped entirely writing songs about food, but I always think twice before doing it just because I’ve got so many already in my catalogue. It’s sort of like a running joke, so I tryyyyyyyyy not to write songs about food, but I cant promise that I wont.

Tell us about “The Essential Weird Al”. What prompted you to release a greatest hits compilation and how did you choose the songs for it?

Weird Al: I was approached by Sony Legacy to do the collection, and I thought it was a good idea… Number one, because I hadn’t had any hits compilations for about 15 years or so and I thought, you know, it was about time. For the longest time I had sort of a knee-jerk reaction against greatest hits collections because my old label, Scotty Brothers, sort of released one every time they were having a bad financial quarter. Like, “Oh, were having a tough time balancing the books, lets put out another Weird Al compilation.”

Yeah, I feel like there was a period of time were there were two or three comps that came one after the other…

Weird Al: Yeah, it was a little silly. And at that point, I just really had a bad taste in my mouth for the whole thing. But you know, a lot of time has gone by and it just felt like it was a good time for it. My previous box set had gone out of print and there wasn’t any kind of collection of, you know, a definitive sort of “greatest hits” collection out in the market and I thought, well, this really does kinda make sense. And the people at Legacy just couldn’t have been nicer. They let me pick all the songs; they let me jam-pack the CDs, which is something that that I normally cant do, because I have a royalty ceiling. I usually cant put more than 12 songs on the album because otherwise, it eats into the profits and, you know… But they said, “go ahead and fill up the CDs as much as you can and we’ll take care of it”. So I was able to pick what I thought were, you know, 2 ½ hours of my best material over my career. There are obviously some omissions… It was a tough decision because I left off some fairly obvious things like “My Bologna”. Which historically is very important to my career, but I just felt like it wasn’t… If you look at it really critically, it really isn’t, like, one of my best songs, you know? Read the rest of this entry →

Awesome, seizure inducing fighting action that’s EVEN MORE Japanese than you’re already used to!

By Jeremy Azevedo

Of all the games I’ve ever thought I’d see for sale exclusively on the Nintendo Wii, a hardcore Capcom fighting game, imported from Japan, featuring a roster of characters most people here have never heard of was not chief among them.

It was with great interest, then, that I followed the story of Capcom Vs Tatsunoko: Ultimate All Stars, a game that may turn out to be exactly what the Wii needs for a number of reasons. The Wii is a hard system to develop for because you have two totally different audiences, the casual and the hardcore. Capcom Vs Tatsunoko appeals equally to both, thanks to a remarkably flexible control scheme. Veterans and purists will want to opt for a traditional joystick, or maybe even a classic Gamecube controller. Newcomers, on the other had, can use the wand and nunchuck for an experience that is less “Street Fighter” and more “Super Smash Bros.”.

When playing with the standard Wii controller, all of you basic attacks are mapped to the A button button. Likewise, all of your special attacks are mapped the Z button. All you have to do is move the control stick in the direction of the move you want to perform and pull the trigger, i.e. up for a vertical attack, back for a feint attack and so on and so forth. The question that this raises is, can you really play a fighting game with dumbed-down controls like this? Apparently, yes, you can, and yes, it’s also super fun.

I myself am a longtime fan of the Capcom fighter, and while I initially balked at the simplified controls, I soon found that it opened up a whole new level of fast and frustration-free gameplay. No longer reliant on quarter circle turns, that occasionally don’t register, I was free to focus on my combos, as were my less-experienced opponents. Essentially, the barrier for entry has been lowered for n00bs, wile still allowing hardcore players to flex their skills the old-fashioned way. And the more I think about it, the more I feel like I’ve done all the shoryken motions that I ever need to, and am totally fine with being able to pull off special moves without getting blisters on my thumbs. I’m over it.

Moving on from the controls, the most important aspect of a “Capcom Vs” is always the character selection. In case you’re wondering what a “Tatsunoko” is, it’s a Japanese animation company responsible for such beloved classics as Speed Racer, Robotech, Samurai Pizza Cats and Neon Genesis Evangelion… None of which are represented in the game due to licensing rights, I’m assuming. Instead, we get a bunch of unknown characters from the 70s wearing skintight jumpsuits. Thankfully, what the Tatsunoko side lacks in distinguishing features, they more than make up for in wildly disparate fighting styles. Yatterman-1, for instance, looks like Vince Noir from “The Mighty Boosh” and bounces all over the screen kicking the shit out of you with a ball-in-a-cup. Meanwhile, Casshern plays defensive while his dog, “Friender”, eats your face.

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We take a ride on the BMW R1200 GS and the F 800 GS motorcycles.

Words by Eugene Faynberg

By Eugene Faynberg

Most of the world’s roads are unpaved, so why limit yourself to the freeways and boulevards?  This is the core philosophy at Jim Hyde’s Rawhyde Adventures (bmwoffroadacademy.com) training facility.

CraveOnline recently got an opportunity to attend a “hands-on” adventure rider training session at RawHyde Adventures just north of Los Angeles.  After getting through the first obstacle – the driveway – Jim Hyde met us at the front of his top of the line training facility.  With chase trucks, RVs loaded with food and camping supplies, and a dozen or more BMW GS motorcycles parked under camouflage netting, it quickly became obvious that this was going to be more than just a ride.  Once everyone from our training group was geared up, we received an introduction to the dual-sport lifestyle.

Initially, I thought it was a joke when our first lesson was not on how to ride in the dirt, but instead how to properly pickup the bike when you fall.  Later in the day, this skill turned out to be very useful.  Taking a spill on your new adventure machine is inevitable and more than a few people wiped out in the first couple of hours.  Starting with basic dirt riding drills on my borrowed BMW R 1200 GS, our training group eventually worked our way up to riding short trails around the facility.

The BMW GS models are immensely powerful, well-balanced, and rugged.  My 1200 GS was even equipped with heated hand grips and ABS.  If you’re coming from a sport bike background like me, this motorcycle will open up another world of riding.  The GS is a go anywhere bike that can take you through the Mojave desert, unpaved fire roads, byways, but can also tear it up in the canyons or even during a trackday at a racetrack.  I have actually seen a guy on a GS that passes sport bikers like they’re standing still on Mulholland Highway in Malibu. Read the rest of this entry →