Not that these statements weren\u2019t true in many regards, but the burning-bridges aesthetic that places the Sex Pistols at Year One for music of any worth (i.e., music that the NME wrote about) erased any sense of historical context or cultural precedent for punk rock for me. Over the last 10-15 years, I\u2019ve filled in the blanks with music criticism, music history, and the tidal wave of reissued albums featuring the bands and sounds that came before punk. Periodicals like Mojo and Arthur<\/a> have also contributed valiantly, as have prolific archivists like Julian Cope (who has tirelessly and breathlessly documented the underground in Germany, Japan,<\/a> even Denmark<\/a>). Nevertheless, I still get a shock whenever I discover bygone scenes with fully developed aesthetics that are underground in the way that punk rock is, but which aren\u2019t \u201cpunk rock.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Currently I\u2019m fascinated with the west London neighborhood of Ladbroke Grove. Its countercultural cachet today comes largely via its association with the Portobello Road Market, which runs on the parallel street, and the annual Notting Hill Carnival. But in the late 60s and 70s Ladbroke Grove was the main enclave for Britain\u2019s drug-gobbling freaks (please, don\u2019t call us hippies).\u00a0 The comparison to San Francisco\u2019s Haight-Ashbury has been made more than once, but the imminent explosion of punk rock all around London, particularly west London, casts the cultural impact of Ladbroke Grove in a more radical light.\u00a0 The neighborhood was the base for countercultural journals like International Times<\/a> and Oz, and even a UK chapter of White Panther Party. Needless to say, bands from Ladbroke grove waved the freak flag particularly high.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/files\/2012\/11\/fbjUvJybPguyqlr8hsPGpvUNo1_500.jpg\")
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