Customer Reviews

Are You a Boy Or Are You a Girl

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I give it 2 1/2 stars.I ended up waiting awhile before getting my hands on a copy of this sole lp reissue by The Barbarians,a short lived(1964-66)garage rock&roll band from Cape Cod,MA.Maybe it was my strong anticipation for this 'Are You A Boy...' disc,but I was a bit let down.Seems that the band itself didn't pen out any of the album's material here.Several decent tracks are present,like the title cut "Are You A Boy Or Are You A Girl?",their covers of Dylan's "Mr.Tambourine Man",their half-hearted cover of the Animal's "House Of The Rising Sun","Bo Diddley"(they actually do a good job)and "Suzy Q".Then there's a ditty about their one-hand drummer "Moulty" which is okay.Several super-lame instrumentals seem to deter from the overall appeal of this CD,I thought.I plan to keep my copy.It's just that 'Are You...' could have been SO much better.Outside of a few TV appearances and their gig on 'The T.A.M.I. Show',I doubt many would even remember these guys.Line-up:Jeff Morris and Bruce Bensen-guitars,Jerry Causi-bass and Victor Moulton(aka Moulty)-drums&vocals.Might appeal to fans of The Outcasts,The Seeds,?&The Mysterians and Count Five.

This release by One Way Records in 1994 was the first CD issued covering their lone LP released in 1965 (Laurie LLP-2033/LSP-2033), the first by that label in stereo. Tracks 1 to 12 were on the album, with track 13 added as a CD bonus. In 2006, Sundazed Music issued one with the same cover and basic contents but with two more bonus tracks added - the previously-unreleased Hey Little Bird and You've Got To Understand.

In all the years I've been collecting and reviewing, and researching information, I have noticed that, quite often, the more obscure the band or artist was, there are those who extol their virtues out of all proportion to their overall appeal. The garage-rock band, The Barbarians, formed in Provincetown on Cape Cod by drummer Victor "Moulty" Moulton, is one such. Unfortunately, anyone taking an unflattering if honest approach in a review can be sure to harvest a slew of negative votes, based not on whether the review was "helpful" in any way, but rather simply as a means of showing displeasure at anyone being seemingly negative about an artist they've embraced as a favourite.

Along with guitarists Bruce Benson and Jeff Morris, and bass player Jerry Causi, Moulty's band hit the airwaves in October 1965 with the novelty tune Are You A Boy Or A Girl? taking direct aim at the long locks of many of the groups that had started to appear on the North American scene in 1964 during the opening phase of the British Invasion. It's catchy, with a nice beat, but the problem was, by this time, going on two years after the arrival of The Beatles, most young men on the continent had started to let their hair grow (including their own), and so the market for the satirical lyrics was pretty limited. Consequently, it ran out of gas at # 55 Billboard Pop Hot 100 b/w Take It Or Leave It on Laurie 3308. Not a horrible result, but then again there were 412 songs that rated higher that year.

Both are in that original LP, as were both sides of their next single release, a cover of Susie-Q b/w What The New Breed Say (Laurie 3326) which went nowhere. In fact, it would be almost half a year before their next charter, an autobiographical tune by the group's leader, who had blown off his left hand while fiddling around with a home-made bomb, after which he wore a hook. Never mind that, today, that would have earned him a visit from Homeland Security, but while that might have seemed like a fascinating story to him to put on a record, the buying public clearly didn't think so because Moulty, b/w I'll Keep On Seeing You (which was also culled from the original LP), barely made the Hot 100 in March 1966, settling in at # 90.

Two interesting factoids about the charted side is that background vocals are provided by The Elegants of Little Star fame in 1958, And it's said that members of The Band - at the time still know as The Hawks from their association with Ronnie Hawkins - sat in on the recording session. The group did enjoy some TV success, having been regulars on Shindig and The T.A.M.I Show, but record success beyond those two minor hits eluded them.

So why 4 stars? Well, if there's one thing completist collectors like, that's seeing ALL of an artist's charters and their B-sides on one disc, and this has both. Other than that, it's pretty pedestrian stuff.