Under the assumption that both recordings preceded the Hangmen, Guernsey and Berberich were the only two members of the Reekers that played on the cuts as the Edgewood sessions were done after Triplett and Henley left that group. In 1965 Arnold Stahl, a local an attorney, and Mike Klavans of WTTG formed 427 Enterprises and took over as the band's management team, helping to further promote the Hangmen. Their connections landed gigs for the group in embassies and even attracted a mention of the group in Newsweek. At the request of Ethel Kennedy, they played at a party for Robert Kennedy’s family while they were still living at Hickory Hill in McLean, Virginia, and Tom Guernsey recounts that he and several other members of the band drank heavily and became inebriated that night. Despite these connections, the Hangmen remained primarily a suburban band, playing for young people at parties and at shopping malls. The group had not yet matriculated to the club scene in Washington, DC frequented by other acts such as the British Walkers and the Chartbusters. As "What a Girl Can’t Do" climbed up the local charts, this situation changed. Eventually, the song reached #1 on the local charts, and the Hangmen became the most popular group in Washington DC. Their precipitous rise in local popularly did not come without its share of notoriey. The February 19, 1966 edition of Billboard reported an "Beatlemania"-style incident that took place at the Giant Record Shop in Falls Church, Virginia, in which a crowd of teenagers convened to hear the Hangmen play a show there, but after the first fifteen minutes of the performance, police had to disperse the excessively large queue, which had caused a traffic jam outside, in fear of possible violations to fire codes. The band was instructed to stop playing and they were whisked into a nearby patrol car and escorted away from the scene. A near riot erupted. In the ensuing melee, angry fans smashed browser bins and display cases. Jack Shaver, the store's owner told Billboard that the store sold 2,500 copies "What a Girl Can’t Do". According to Shaver, a nearby high school was let out that day because of snow, and that the store began filling up at noon in anticipation of the scheduled 4 p.m. performance. He estimated that approximately 400 were "jammed and packed" inside, and that as many as 1,500 were clustered outside pressing to get in. Tom Guernsey has recollected that there were up to 500 in the store and 300 outside.