Friday Happenings

New Music

-- Guitarist Fred Frith has been a fixture on the avant garde pop music scene since he fronted the art rock band Henry Cow. Long a fixture of the downtown free music scene in NYC, he has collaborated with everyone from Robert Wyatt to John Zorn. Tonight he performs with harpist Zeena Parkins (a fellow member of the ensemble Skeleton Crew) and violinist/vocalist Carla Kihlstedt. Institute for Contemporary Art, South Boston. 7:30 p.m. $25/$20.

Hipsters and Toys

-- Lab Boston, the local hipster toy and equipment shop, hosts an art show in collaboration with Proletariat. It features 100 works of art priced at $100 or less. If you've already finished your holiday shopping, there will also be an open bar to drown your seasonal affective disorder. Lab Boston, 13 Brighton Ave., Allston, 7 p.m. Free.

Dancing Hipsters

-- Hipster throwdown Thunderdome is back, and Boston's only post-apocalyptic dance party has invited Santa Claus to pose for some pictures. (No word on Barack Obama's availability, but Mumbles doesn't cross the river after 10 p.m., even for Santa.) Featuring spins from Mistaker, MicL PTVN, and DJ Die Young. Greek American Political Club, 288 Green St., Cambridge, 10 p.m. $9.

Movies

Night and Fog in Japan (1960), the not-so-subtle nod to Alain Resnais, brought the French New Wave to Japan. Nagisa Oshima's film was so politically charged at the time (it involves a lengthy sequence debating the failed legacy of the Japanese student protests) that his studio pulled the film from theaters after three days. Screening with The Catch (1961), Oshima's adaptation of the upsetting Kenzaburo Oe morality tale about a captured African-American fighter pilot. Harvard Film Archive, Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy St., Cambridge, 7 p.m. $8/$6.

Image of Fred Frith by Alexander Kurz, used under a Creative Commons license.