W.S. Walcott Medicine Show

For those of us living in The States it is quite understandable if you’ve never heard of The Len Price 3.  The last time they played the U.S was 2007 when they were part of a Little Steven’s Underground Garage Tour.  To the best of my knowledge they were here in 2006 as well when they made a stop at CMJ on their way down to SXSW.  It was at this rather empty show that the band first met (and immediately signed) with Steve Van Zandt.  Regardless, my point is, that for a band that’s been in existence since 2004, they don’t make it to these shores very often.  So when I got a heads up from a friend in England that LP3 were heading our way for a very limited run of shows in the north east (3 shows to be exact), my heart began doing back flips.  The New York City show would be the third of three, with the first being Portland, ME, the second in Boston and then the finale being at The Parkside Lounge on E Houston Street on the lower east side.

First a little background since as I’ve already made clear, you probably don’t know much about these guys.  The Len Price 3 were formed in 2004 in North Kent, England out of love for first wave mod bands such as The Who, The Kinks and the like mixed with late 70’s punk like The Clash, The Jam and The Ramones.  With a lineup of Glen Page on guitar and vocals, Steve Huggins on bass and Neil Frommow on drums and vocals you will immediately notice that there’s no one in the band named Len Price.

Saturday’s show at The Parkside included The Chelsea Curve from Boston who were on all three of the tour’s stops as well as Steve Krebs &The Maynard G’s and Palmyra & The Doppel Gang as support.  All three of which treated the sold out crowd to their very own take on classic garage rock and roll.

With that being said, Len Price 3 took the stage shortly after 11 PM and started things up with “Chav Squad” a punk rocker that slips into a mod tune off of last year’s Ip Dip Do album and followed that up with another one from this album, “She Came From Out Of The Sun”.  Let’s be clear, LP3 don’t have many ballads in their repertoire but surely they came out of the gate on Saturday ready, willing and able to rock the shit out of us.  Next up was “Weekend Hippies”, a rather amusing little ditty from 2020’s EP The Strood Recording Company.  Strood was originally supposed to be a full length LP and with over 30 tunes recorded and mixed it very well could have been.  However, Glen Page at the last minute decided that most of the songs weren’t all that good so the band decided to go with an EP instead with 4 of the lot’s best songs.

Working at a breakneck pace with barely any time between songs the set was presenting itself as something that The Ramones would have been proud of…fast and furious and fucking fantastic.  About 5 or 6 songs in, the band offered up “Grass Is Green” a non LP single the band released last month.  While the single version had a fantastic farfisa interlude which was missed on stage, it still came off beautifully with some spot on harmonies coming from behind his kit as drummer Neil Frommow proved he is more than capable of doing more than one thing (expertly) at the same time.

The barrage of high octane ferociously loud rock and roll kept coming as the band kept spitting out one kick ass burner after another, as if it were a competition to see how many songs could be squeezed into a limited space of time.  At one point however, Page took the time out between songs to apologize to the people who were standing in front of him.  He said that he was trying his best not to spray spit and sweat all over them while he was singing/shouting but that he feared that to a large extent he was failing.  No one seemed to mind one bit.

Another amusing moment occurred late in the evening’s set when a rather inebriated gent squeezed his way up to the front of the crowd.  Everyone who’d been at the lip of the stage fully expected this dude to be loud and disorderly but it turned out he was rather creepy instead as he seemed pretty much oblivious to what was going on onstage as he stared rather blankly at two of the women who he sandwiched himself between.  I’ll be honest I feared that this situation was not going to end well but this was all going on right in front of Page who took the lead in diffusing things by bending down to crowd level and sang right into the dude’s ear.  Ironically, the dazed and confused guy never looked away from the two females, but he did leave as soon as the song concluded.

The band ended up RIPPING through a twenty or so song set and when they left the stage I fully expected them not to come out for an encore as they clearly expended a humongous amount of energy throughout the set but when Kipp from The Parkside Lounge took to the stage to egg the crowd into calling the boys back on stage for a few more, the LP3 more than willingly obliged with a 5 song encore which was comprised of nothing but requests from the crowd. 

When all was said and done, The Len Price 3 proved to all who squeezed into the back room at the Parkside Lounge on a rainy Saturday night in Manhattan what a great feeling it was to raise a glass and sing and dance to some good old rock and roll.  To Glen, Steve and Neil, much thanks for a fantastic night and please don’t wait another 16 years to make your way back.

The Len Price 3