Media Meditation #2: Wall Street Money Never Sleeps – Oh Yesss, Blue Horse still loves Anacott Steel!

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps : 'Start Calling Me Gordon'

Gordon Gekko is back in the best way…greedy. This movie killed it! I don’t know what you heard about sequels but it does NOT apply to Wall Street 2. Oliver Stone’s movie was nothing short of brilliant and he delivered the old Wall Street with current spunk. The imagery and symbolism in the movie is awesome, especially if you’re from NY metropolitan area. I don’t want to spoil the movie for you because is absolutely a must see. The sound track is mostly all David Byrne and he gives the movie some weird 80s nostalgia feel for some reason. Everything about this movie is up to date though, IBMs and brick cell phones have been replaced with six monitors streaming ticker tapes and daily stock prices and the cell phones are now Blackberries. No, not the ones you eat.

For those of you who haven't seen the first one, do yourself a favor and rent it. These moves deal with high powered , highly paid traders on Wall St. who influence people to invest in public businesses among other things. As with a lot of Oliver Stone movies, its goal is to reveal the ugly face of some of the characters involved. He tries to show how laws around our system for business get broken and bypassed almost seamlessly through lies and secrecy. Insider trading for example.If you want to have a taste of what scandals such the Martha Stewart insider trading headline, and Lehman Brothers, watch these films.

Relevant magazine: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

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Media Meditation #1: New Music Addition: Localizing playlist to Local Natives – Gorilla Manor

Local Natives / A take Away Show @ Route du Rock Hiver 2010 from Nathanaël Le Scouarnec on Vimeo.

Mid-September I got an amazing opportunity to see Modest Mouse live at the Williamsburg Waterfront in Brooklyn, NY. I had asked a long time friend of mine to come to the concert with me and she blissfully accepted. My friend’s name is Nicole “Ice Queen” and we have always gone to shows together and shared music and just generally have similar tastes in almost anything. Bottom line… She is rad.

On our way to Brooklyn we hit some pretty rough NY traffic going over the GWB; strangely at 5:00 going southbound on I-87. That almost never happens. Unluckily we had the pleasure of sharing the road with a moron who happened to run out of gas immediately following the two lane merger onto the bridge. Needless to say we were running late to the concert and we had got to talk and catching up on each other’s lives in between random bouts of high octane NY road rage.

Nicole is slightly older than me and has a few friends in the music industry that sign artists and what not. While waits in horrendous traffic she shared with me Gorilla Manor, a new CD by the artists Local Natives. Nicole had told me that a friend of hers saw them in Brooklyn a while back and that one thing led to another and they got signed.

As we were sitting in the car listen to this CD she was watching and listening to my musical happiness spill out my mouth and via facial expressions. This CD is FIRE! I haven’t stopped listening to it since she introduced me to it. The tracks “Wide Eyes” and “Camera Talk” are my favorites but they’re all ear candy. The harmonies are spot on and are similar to Fleet Foxes but more youthful in character. Some of the delay guitar, especially on the opening track “Wide Eyes,” is captivating. The lead guitar bursts through like a camera lens that quickly focuses on a subject to make it real. It is a sonic joy to listen to. Without a doubt it made the tedious ride to Brooklyn a little less anxiety-ridden.

Any who, Modest Mouse was AWESOME to see on the Waterfront. Extend songs were like EVERY song which was great. Special thanks to Brooklyn Brewery for the fantastic Beer Garden located to the right of the stage. Truly and awesome night and thank you to Nicole for the ride in and company.

They are also getting a lot of press now… Pitchfork

Check out the bands MySpace Facebook and Website

Tracksandfields.com
Remix Local Natives’ ‘Wide Eyes’, and be in with a chance of a digital release through Infectious Music.

Wide Eyes Video

Nouveau Post

1. Hey my name is Kurt Griese and I’m from New Hampton, NY. I’m an International Business major here at Champlain and will be completing my degree in December.
2. My favorite media experience this summer was going to a free concert on Governor’s Island put on by Converse. The artist was a band called Portugal. The Man. The atmosphere was great because you could see all the lights of NYC’s financial district as the sun was going down. Plus the music was really good. It gave my limbic a good work out.
3. What I enjoy about the media are how easy they are to tap into. What I dislike are things like top 10 lists or 20 or 100. I feel ranking things just takes out anything special about the rest.
4. I had the opportunity to intern at a Hispanic advertising agency over the summer called The Vox Collective in NYC and my time there was well spent. I’d like to return and perhaps pursue a career as an accounts manager. I would also like to continue my education as well at some point and extend myself into some aspect of international law. We’ll see where life takes me…


My work Blog:
The Internet Cosmopolitan by Kurt Griese