The Barbarians

by Richie UnterbergerWith their appearances on the Nuggets compilation and The T.A.M.I. Show, the Barbarians are one of the best-remembered garage bands of the 60s. Not that its easy to forget the sight of a one-handed drummer, complete with hook, driving his band through a garage punk number in the company of the days biggest British Invasion, soul, and surf stars. Moulty was hardly self-conscious about his handicap; on the tiny hit single immortalized on Nuggets (titled, logically enough, Moulty), he tells the story of the triumph over his loss in no uncertain melodramatic terms. The band also managed a somewhat bigger hit single, the British Invasion-inspired novelty Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl.