Hi this is Gemma Dempsey and for this edition of the Global Gig Guide we head to the US for two festivals: Unlimited Sunshine and the Christmas Sweater Festival and then to Norway for the Nobel Peace Prize concert.
The first Christmas Sweater Festival takes place on December 14 at the Crash Mansion in Downtown Los Angeles.
Presented by the Fold, it features two sets each from the Pity Party, the Happy Hollows, the Deadly Syndrome , Eskimohunter and the Mae- Shi.
The Crash Mansion is on the site of the Myron Ballroom, which was built by Mary Pickford and named after a chorus girl called Myrna Myron. The place survived all the various fads and fashions of popular music from the swing of the 1940's to disco in the 70’s. Myron's Ballroom was sold in 2005 to the owner's of New York's Crash Mansion and the L.A incarnation opened this summer and boasts several bars and the latest sound gear.
If you thought the name of the Christmas Sweater Festival was just a gimmick, you'd be wrong and in fact to show their dedication to the under appreciated art form of the Christmas sweater, uber-trendy Deisel are donating a gift certificate to the best sweater creation to attend the event.
Now's your chance to pull out that sparkly red number from under your bed and head to the Crash Mansion in Downtown LA. Proceeds from the Christmas Sweater Festival go to the charity Doctors without Borders, so have fun and wear your pully with pride!
If you live in other parts of the US, maybe you'd like to attend the Unlimited Sunshine festival. It's curated by indie rockers Cake and goes on the road from now until mid December; cities on the schedule include Boston, Richmond and New York. The Unlimited Sunshine Festival began in 2002 and this year the line up includes the Brazilian Girls, the Detroit Cobras and Oakley Hall.
I talked to Cake's front-man John McCrea about curating this festival and their latest CD, B-Sides and Rarities, which features Black Sabbath's War Pigs and the classic Mehna Mehna. You can hear the full version of our conversion on the Global Gig Guide page on Vox.com. For full details about the Unlimited Sunshine festival check out Cake's website,
This year the Nobel Peace Prize is to be shared between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change and Al Gore, Jr. for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and how to counteract such change.
The prizes are awarded on December 10 at a ceremony at the Nobel Institute in Oslo and the following day there's the Nobel Peace Prize concert at the Oslo Spektrum Arena.
It'll be co hosted by Tommy Lee Jones and Uma Thurman and some of the artists on the bill include Alicia Keys, Annie Lennox, Earth Wind and Fire, K T Tunstall and home-boy Morten Harket of A-Ha fame.
That's it for this week.
If you want more information about any of the gigs I've talked about Or want to tell me about events in your part of the world, send an email to Global@kcrw.com.