FIVE FIRSTS: Tim Livingston of the Last Conspirators

NAME: Tim Livingston (aka TL Stone)
BAND AFFILIATION: The Last Conspirators
INSTRUMENT: The Voice

1. THE FIRST ALBUM I EVER BOUGHT WAS … As a kid my house was filled with albums and 45s. The full gamut of ’60s rock, pop and soul. I remember the first single I bought was “Summer in the City.” As far as an album goes, the first one I bought with money I had earned was in 1972 – Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out.” Vinyl LP with the original fold-out desk jacket and paper pantie dust sleeve. Cool music and packaging for an 11-year-old rocker. Soon after Ziggy, the Stooges, Mott the Hoople, the Stones’ “Exile” and the Dolls made their way into my collection, but AC was first.

2. THE FIRST CONCERT THAT I EVER SAW WAS … both the Box Tops and Vanilla Fudge at the club my father worked at in Wildwood ’68. I used to sit on the stairs and watch the sound checks and first sets. The first major full-concert I remember going to was the Beach Boys outdoors at a band shell in NJ.

3. THE FIRST MUSICAL INSTRUMENT I EVER OWNED OR PLAYED WAS … probably a harmonica, but the one with the biggest impact was a Harmony Rocket guitar my brother bought me when I was about 13. An electric hollow-body. Wish I still had it…

4. THE FIRST SONG THAT I EVER PERFORMED IN PUBLIC WAS … the original blues-punk version of the Morons’ “Chewin on Tin Foil” when JB Homicide and I commandeered the instruments from a cover band at a house party in East Greenbush, 1979. It was written and performed on the spot. There was beer, guitars and a roll of tin foil. The rest is history.

5. THE FIRST BAND I WAS EVER IN WAS … The Morons: 1979-1982, Albany, NY. The Capital Region’s very first glam/punk band. Described in the press as “desperate and flashy”, we opened for the Cramps, the Stranglers, the Motels, Gary Myrick & the Figures, closed the first LarkFest and played every rock club, dive bar and house party that would have us. Started at a party in East Greenbush and ended in downtown Albany at the Chateau Lounge just over two years later. It was a short, but wild ride. Oh, the stories we could tell…

Tim Livingston and the rest of the Last Conspirators take the stage for the Albany Invasion II at Jason’s Upstairs Bar in Hudson on Saturday, September 19. The show begins at 9pm and sharing the bill will be the Blisterz and Blackcat Elliot.