A prominent critic once called the Clash "the only band that mattered," a comment that went beyond appreciation of the band's punk sound and acknowledged its radical political outlook.

Today's solipsistic punk couldn't be farther from that ideal if it were being sung by Pat Boone, but in Europe the legacy of 70s British punk lives on in the aggressively political songs of the Basque singer Fermin Muguruza and the Spanish polymath Manu Chao.

In Europe, punk is still edgy, and the best places to see it are "social centers," abandoned buildings that, thanks to Europe's relatively lax property laws, have been appropriated by radical community groups for the purposes of populist entertainment and political activism. It is in these nonprofit, anticapitalist venues that the antiglobalization movement has developed since the late '70s, and where Banda Bassotti, Italy's most popular rock collective, made its reputation. Named after a football team and containing as many members on a given night, BB was formed on the outskirts of Rome back in 1981 as an organization that raised money to help the socially disenfranchised. Only later did it become a music group.