Capital City Film Festival, Round 2

We’ve been a part of some pretty amazing events over the last few years. Pro surf invitationals all over the world, Sasquatch Music Festival, Treasure Island Music Festival, SXSW… we get around, and yes; we’re crafty and we’re always down.

It’s also really nice to support the up-and-coming events, especially when they are practically in our backyard. That’s exactly why we took a short trip down the road to the capital city of America’s High Five - Lansing, Michigan, for the second annual Capital City Film Festival.

The CCFF, which took place April 12-15, is an upstart festival that brings together movies, music, and ideas. This isn’t what you’d traditionally think of when you think film festival though. It’s much more rock n’ roll, and that is definitely reflected in the content they bring in during the four days.

Since we sponsored the music venue, the Cushe crew hit the road to spread the good word on awesome footwear, and to hear some amazing bands.

The kick-off was Michigan’s own Greensky Bluegrass, who really bend the genre of bluegrass when they dive into a jamming cover of the Beatles “Help”. Murder by Death (pictured above) put on an amazing Friday night show, and William Elliot Whitmore took us down the Americana road on Saturday night. Whitmore also had the most epic encore we’ve seen in a long time, which involved exiting the front of the stage, wielding a guitar, and a shot of whiskey (we’ll explain more over a beer sometime). The closing night was no slacker either, featuring a fantastic performance by LIGHTS, who is absolutely blowing up right now.

When it was all said and done, the festival boasted 72 films, a full day of fresh ideas shared by people who are WAY smarter than us featuring reps from Google and the New York Times, and four straight nights of top flight shows to close each day down.

Whew. Not a bad way to spend a weekend. We’re looking forward to seeing where the CCFF goes in the next few years.

<3 Cushe

More

Sasquatch! 2011 Wrap Up

Wow. What a fantastic holiday weekend in the Gorge! The 10th Sasquatch! Music Festival did not disappoint in any way. Not only was the lineup crazy epic, we were fortunate enough to meet massive amounts of cool people who came to hang out at the Cushe tent. Some of those same people are going to get hooked up with free shoes, so next time we say come visit us at an event, you should.

Since we were at a music festival, let’s get back to the music for a moment. With headliners like the Foo fighters, Death Cab, Modest Mouse and Wilco, you know you are getting a great show. But who else did we dig aside from the obvious heavy hitters? Both Sleigh Bells and Local Natives stole our little musical hearts, so check them out when you get a chance. Did you have a favorite performance from this years Sasquatch!? Let us know on Facebook and establish your indie cred. We're kidding, we already know you have cred :)

If you couldn’t make it to the festival this year, NPR has a bucket of photos and more importantly, a grip load of recordings directly from the board for your listening pleasure. NPR, once again, earns the "We're Awesome" badge.

Check out some of our photos below too, but remember, we’re not photographers… we make shoes. Also, we love the Hipstamatic effect.

More

Find us at Sasquatch! Music Festival

Why? Because you can hang out with us, which is awesome. Also, because you can enter to win some cash for our webstore to outfit your feets with our kicks.

That's right, chedder, bread, cheese, paper, lettuce, cashious... you like to win it and we like to give it out. All you have to do is swing by our tent and plug your email into one of our iPads and you'll be entered to win. If you DO win, you are one lucky duck and you'll get a coupon code you can use to score a new pair of Cushes directly from our webstore. Frankly, we can't think of a better way to spend a holiday weekend. 

Happy travels and we'll see you at Sasquatch!

More

Sasquatch! Music Festival

This Memorial Day weekend, we’ll be hitting the 10th anniversary of the Bigfoot-iest music festival of them all, the Sasquatch! Music Festival.  On May 27-30, some of the coolest music acts in the world will be putting on an amazing show at the Gorge Amphitheater near the Columbia River in Washington.  A beautiful venue for sure. 

If you are lucky enough to go, you’ll catch live performances we guarantee you’ll never forget.  The Foo Fighters, Death Cab, Modest Mouse, The Decemberists, Chromeo, Matt & Kim… whew… and that’s just a SMALL part of the lineup.  Look a little deeper into the schedule and find the one of the best live bands you’ll ever see in the Old 97’s, J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr., and Reggie Watts, who oozes soul. 

The lineup isn’t just all rock, roll, indie and folk though.  Our very own Bonobo will be throwing down a DJ set not to be missed.  Major Lazer which features Diplo, Ratatat, Bassnectar and Skrillex (who is absolutely blowing up right now) will also be there ensuring you get your daily dose of low end frequency. 

With four stages of this action, you are going to wish you had three clones.  Check out the full lineup – we can’t possibly cover it all!  Dare we say this is one of the best festival cards we’ve ever seen?  We dare. 

In between the awesome, stop by our space.  Maybe you can win some free shoes and grab some swag.  We’re cool like that and so are you.

Have you been to an unforgettable festival, or are you planning to hit this years Sasquatch!? Let us know on Facebook or Twitter.  We just like hearing from ya.

More

Bonobo on NPR!

Our boy Bonobo just wrapped up his North American tour, which featured stops in Chicago, Toronto, Philly, San Fran and even Lawrence Kansas of all places.  Just kidding, we love ya Lawrence Kansas!  Seriously, 23rd Street Brewery in Lawrence is AWESOME.

While Bonobo was on our side of the pond, he was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered.  Check out the interview to discover the creative inspiration and process for crafting his clutch tunes.  While you are in the checking-out mood, head on over to bonobomusic.com and grab a free mp3 - the Warrior One Remix of ‘Eyesdown’.

Hopefully you were lucky enough to catch a DJ set by Bonobo, or even one of his shows with a full band.  When I say full band, I mean George Clinton would be proud of the number of people on stage.  There is an amazing live performance video too after the jump – so give it a watch and get ya head bobbin’!

More