This image just isn't in sync

KICK OUT THE JEANS: Once upon a time, before rock 'n' roll sold its soul to big corporations, bands like Iggy and the Stooges and the Who would have smashed their instruments before selling their songs for car commercials. (Well, they would have smashed their instruments anyway, really.)

Same with Detroit's legendary punks the MC5.

Yet, the band's logo, a panther with wings drawn by poster artist Gary Grimshaw, is the latest in rock chic. It's been co-opted, along with other band logos, by Levi's Vintage Clothing for a collection called Sonic Revolution.

The MC5, famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s for the tune Kick Out the Jams -- and for lead singer Rob Tyner's being a white guy with an extraordinary afro -- wasn't just a musical revolution; the band's members were radical politically, too. Linked with the White Panthers (allies of the Black Panthers), MC5 jibed with the Panther aim to eliminate racism and the right wing by preaching a "total assault on the culture by any means necessary." (The band also featured the late guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith, husband to punk godmother Patti Smith.)

So, what celebrity is in this month's Vibe sporting an MC5 T-shirt?

Justin Timberlake.

BOOK: Jazz fans should know about So What: The Life of Miles Davis by John Szwed (Simon & Schuster, $28). The biography of the late trumpeter includes anecdotes about Davis' prickly personality, including a story about his being seated by a Washington wife at a White House dinner.

What had Mr. Davis done to be invited to such a dinner, the lady asked.

"Well," Davis grumbled, "I've changed music four or five times."

The gossipy So What paints Davis as a complex artist, someone who, although often brutal to his friends, family and fellow musicians, was never inauthentic. It delves into Davis' torrid love life and his descent into drug addiction, including the period in the mid 1970s when Davis lived among filth, bugs and rats in his Upper West Side mansion in New York. It takes a particularly candid look at Davis' relationship with arranger Gil Evans, who many speculate was the only person Davis truly liked.

RADIO: WUSF-FM 89.7 presents Prez & Lady Day: The Story of Billie Holiday and Lester Young at 11 p.m. Friday. The program, part of the station's "Riverwalk" jazz series, will feature the Jim Cullum Jazz Band and vocalist Topsy Chapman telling the story of the remarkable partnership of Holiday and saxophonist Young, the man she nicknamed the President.

VALENTINE'S DANCE: Ryan Berg, artist and member of local glitter rock band Chariot, is hosting an old-fashioned Winter Valentine Dance, the "prom you always really wanted to have," at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Tampa Garden Center, 2629 Bayshore Blvd. The dance (a cotillion, really) will feature decorations, legal libations (like punch) and lots of DJ-spun and live music. Photographers will snap pictures of handsome couples for souvenirs.

Tickets are $5 and can be purchased at the Vinyl Fever record store, 2307 S. Dale Mabry Highway, Tampa, or at the door. Call (813) 805-7487.

-- To contact Gina Vivinetto, e-mail gina@sptimes.com .

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