The T.O. Do List: November 21 & 22, 2009

by: Toronto Notes

November 21, 2009 12:00 AM

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1. Birthed in Ottawa and now based here, Bonjay is the dancehall, soul, hip-hop and pop-loving duo of vocalist Alanna Stuart and DJ/producer Pho. Bonjay first turned heads in ’07; since then, they’ve released only a trickle of remixes, but their new Gimmee Gimmee EP gives us a more confident and bold Bonjay, with both the title track and “Faat Gyal” blazing new, fresh and bass-bumping trails. The duo celebrate its release Saturday night (Nov. 21) at Teranga (159 Augusta) with Poirier and Valeo. $8.

2. The promoters of the Bite Your Tongue concert series have a reputation for creative bookings — after all, they’re the guys behind those guerrilla Extermination Music Night events. However, even if Saturday's (Nov. 21) second installment of BYT will be staged at a legit venue — The Centre of Gravity (1300 Gerrard E.) — that minimizes the risk of getting busted, seeing acts ranging from Californian electronic duo Lucky Dragons to noise-hop wizard Nif-D to broken balladeer Castlemusic to bucket-jazz kings Feuermusk to Corpusse (a.k.a. Toronto’s “punk-rock Leonard Cohen”) will still get your heart racing with illicit thrills. $10. 9pm.

3. A legendary local outfit, Sacrifice burned their mark into the thrash scene during the genre’s mid-1980s heyday before weathering the rise of grunge in the early ’90s with another pair of releases including their final statement, Apocalypse Inside, for iconic imprint Metal Blade Records. And then Sacrifice went silent. Sixteen years later, the band’s classic lineup has reunited to release The Ones I Condemn. It’s an impressive collection of pure-blooded thrash metal that remains true to the Sacrifice legacy, and yet sounds entirely contemporary. The band will certainly get a hero's welcome Saturday night (Nov. 21) at the Opera House (735 Queen E) with Maximum RNR, E-Force and Spewgore. $20 from Ticketmaster, Rotate This, Rock Zone, The Altered Native. Doors open at 7pm. For more, read Chris Bilton's interview with the band.

4. Montreal metallers Priestess staked their claim at the more energetic end of the stoner-metal spectrum with their acclaimed 2006 debut album, Hello Master, but the band quickly found a new audience in the videogame soundtrack crowd (an achievement now bolstered by a couple of inclusions in the Guitar Hero series). It’s fitting, then, that while their sophomore effort, Prior to the Fire, is packed with Iron Maidenesque guitar harmonies and epic solos, it has only slightly more depth than a first-person-shooter game. Fortunately, the buzz-saw riffage of tracks like “Trapped in Space & Time” and album opener “Ladykiller” should induce the kind of Pavlovian headbanging that makes the band's lyrical competence totally irrelevant. Priestess play Lee’s Palace (529 Bloor W) Saturday night (Nov. 21) with Early Man and Trigger Effect. $15 from Ticketmaster, Horseshoe, Rotate This, Soundscapes.

5. And as reported in Toronto Notes earlier this week, this Saturday (Nov. 21) OCAD opens up bidding to the public at the Whodunit? Mystery Art Sale, where identically sized pieces are sold for $75, and the identity of the artists are not revealed until the purchase is made. 100 McCaul.

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