Your weekend arts forecast: I’m a joker, I’m a smoker, etc.

Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Steve Miller, who created some of the most indelible radio hits of the 1970s, performs tonight (Thursday, June 30) at the Seminole Hard Rock Live in east Tampa.

The Steve Miller Band’s “Fly Like an Eagle,” “The Joker,” “Jet Airliner,” “Take the Money and Run,” along with a handful of others just as strong, were part of a rare breed of pop/rock tunes that worked just as well on fast-moving AM radio as they did on hipster FM playlists.

The Wisconsin native has always been a craftsman whose tunes are carefully constructed – so well that many of them seem simple and effortless. Very few people in the pop business have been able to pull that off – chief among them Paul McCartney, longtime friend (and occasional collaborator) of Miller’s.

His career began in the late ‘60s, out of San Francisco. The first iteration of the Steve Miller Band was a psychedelic blues outfit (see the FM hits “Living in the USA” and “Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around,” 1968 and ’69, respectively).

His last major chart hit was the No. 1 “Abracadabra” in 1982. Most recently, Miller released a “lost” live album from 1977, Breaking Ground.

Tickets for tonight’s show are here.

Work by Judith Villavisanis, artist of the month at Gulfport’s Brenda McMahon Gallery.

Gods and bods

The theme for Saturday’s Gulfport Art Walk is Body Beautiful. Approximately 30 fine artists were tapped to create work “inspired by uplifting and honoring the human body in all its spiritual and aesthetic forms.” There will also be a “Goddess competition” with women (and men) dressed as Roman deities.

Sponsored by the Gulfport Merchants Chamber, the outdoor event (5-9 p.m.) advertises “artists, Jewelers, sculptors, body painters, chaine malle PLUS an art contest for the best expressions of our body concepts.” 

Models are being body painted from noon to 5 p.m. at the Gulfport Casino; they’ll be walking the streets (alongside you and I) during the event. 

In addition

Not a whole lot of high- or even medium-profile shows this weekend; since Monday is a federal holiday (Independence Day), perhaps certain performers and/or venue people felt like stretching it into a long holiday weekend.

Nevertheless, here’s what’s happening:

Dutchman premieres. American Stage closes out the 2021-22 season with a production of Amiri Baraka’s controversial one-act drama, directed by Erica Sutherlin. Preview tonight; opening Friday. Read all about it here.

WAHH World Fusion Band. Blending electric jazz with classical Indian music for a potent exotic cocktail, Friday at the Palladium Theater. Read all about it here.

Improv comedy showdown. Definitely Not Murderers bring musical improv to Stageworks Theatre Saturday, in a shared program with the Tampa Bay Improv All-Stars. Read all about it here.

Shinedown at Daddy Kool. The Jacksonville hard rock band plays a free show Friday at 3 p.m. at the record store, part of the Factory St. Pete complex. Advance RSVP tickets are sold out.

What about fireworks, you ask? We’ll have all that information for you Saturday here at the Catalyst.

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