Beginning with just woozy saxophone and Afton Wolfe’s strummed guitar, Slingshots builds steadily until it becomes the textured, frenetic high point of Wolfe’s live set. Afton Wolfe & The Snake Hunters command the stage, with Connor Quigley’s tuneful bass and Madison George’s drums driving onward in compelling and unexpected rhythms, while Alan Bailey’s propulsive keys fill out the sound. Over these layers, Afton Wolfe’s guitar becomes increasingly urgent, and he delivers a vocal performance full of grain and grit, desperate character. The saxophone, played by Seth Fox, becomes like another voice, weaving its way through the melody, changing in pace and growing intensity.
Wolfe shares about the song and the ‘frenzy’ of the live performance: “Forever one of my favorite songs I’ve ever found. It was written around the same time and period of my life as Steel Wires and Paper Piano, a couple of decades ago. Part of a collection of songs that never got recorded by Dollar Book Floyd. Lyrically associative on purpose, as it was discovered while dealing with aforementioned anxiety and being lost in my own home. I wanted to do this one, because the version on Petronius’ Last Meal (which I like but recorded in 2008, at least a few lifetimes ago) does not really capture the panic as much as the live frenzy.”
The original version of Slingshots appeared on Wolfe’s Petronius’ Last Meal EP. This take of the song features on Wolfe’s brand-new release Live from The Fallout Shelter, recorded in Boston. This absorbing 15-Song, 74-Minute live recording is out now. Wolfe says of the album: “The story of this live album goes back a couple of years. It actually goes back decades, in some sense, as some songs on this record are over 20 years old. Never mind that ‘What I Am’ came out in 1988, when I was 10 years old, but I wrote ‘Cyclone’ with Lhay Browning in a treehouse in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in 1998, and ‘Paper Piano’ is at least 25 years old. But the reason I wanted to do this at The Fallout Shelter – aside from it being a magical place, manned by incorruptible heroes and soldiers in the battle between good and evil, with state-of-the-art live audio and video recording equipment and a steady crowd of true music fans that understand the most precious resource I know of – community.” Indeed, that communal coming together and sense of unity is what the best live music is all about. And all that kinship and camaraderie is captured in this energetic blast of a show.
Afton Wolfe is hosting a John Lennon Tribute on 9th October 2026 at 3rd & Lindsley in Nashville, the proceeds from which will benefit the Music Venue Alliance Nashville, a not-for-profit organisation that advocates for independent music venues, promoters, and festivals. As Wolfe demonstrates here, he’s a compelling live performer, and he’ll be joined on stage by a collection of excellent artists. If you happen to be in Nashville, check it out. In the meantime, absorb yourself in Slingshots.
