Attention aspiring musicians, bands, and people with nothing better to do: Right now, our friends at Converse, Journey’s and Downtown Records are having a huge “Get Out of the Garage” music contest which gives entrants the chance to win a free trip to New York City and four days, three nights of recording time in a professional studio. To enter, just check out GetOutofTheGarageMusicContest.com, upload one of your songs to their Website, and wait to see if you’re track made the cut! The contest ends September 15.

To promote the contest, and give you a second chance to win free stuff, we at COED are holding our own “Show Us Your Kicks” contest, which has nothing to do with “recording time” at all! All you have to do is send us a picture of your dirtiest, filithiest, most F’ed-up shoes and the person to send in the worst pair of the bunch gets a gift certificate for a brand new pair of Converse sneakers to replace the ones you screwed up to win a contest, plus swag from Downtown Records (home of Cold War Kids, Justice, Gnarls Barkley, Santogold, and more!)

Send all your grossest shoe pics to kicks@coedmagazine.com

It seems that Converse (#1 choice of 1920s b-ball stars and indie rock hipsters alike) is celebrating 100 years of being in the sneaker business by releasing a line of limited edition kicks that pay homage to rock greats The Beatles, The Grateful Dead, The Doors, and Kurt Cobain. The designs, which are printed on both the classic Chuck Taylor and Jack Purcell high tops, feature iconic images associated with the groups, such as the Dead skull and Cobain’s sketches from him journals. (On a side note, you almost have to admire Courtney Love’s complete and utter lack of shame.) (more…)