What You're Doing Tonight, 5/11
The Vivian Girls, eighties music gone country, and Tod Browning's classic sideshow movie Freaks
Vivian Girls
The Vivian Girls take the stage at Bowery Ballroom tonight.
CHICK LICKS: If you still haven't experienced the lo-fi charms of the Vivian Girls -- even after they landed on New York Magazine's New List, much to the haughty chuckles of music snobs who'd been listening to them for, like, ever -- swing by Bowery Ballroom tonight. 8PM
STEP RIGHT UP: If you've never seen Tod Browning's Freaks, his 1932 paean to circus sideshow performers (in which he cast real "freaks," to great public outcry), get on it at Film Forum tonight, when it screens as a twofer with The Unholy Three (starring Lon Chaney). It's a haunting, touching film that could never be made today. 6:15, 9PM.
COUNTRY TIME: Finally, somebody's revisited the music of the 1980s with a country-western twist. You haven't really experienced Van Halen's Hot 4 Teacher until you've heard it infused with '80s Go South's absolute torch and twang. Hill Country BBQ, free.
