THE BAND
What do you get when you combine Pittsburgh bluegrass musicians who inexplicably find themselves forming a pack united by their love of acoustic string music, heady improv, weird sonic sensibility and obscure reggae tunes?
You get The Wolf Tones.
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Along the way — and true to our free-roaming wolf ancestors — the journey is unplanned. Sets can bounce from old-school Flatt & Scruggs to a grassed-up version of a Toots & the Maytals tune in the blink of an eye and the flick of a banjo string.
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The pack is always on the move, combining a repertoire of classic bluegrass with an adventurous improv spirit... and occasionally covering Prince and Peter Tosh. Or Harry Belafonte. Or a whole night of Jerry Garcia tunes. Or something a random audience member might yell out.
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We're wolves. We play bluegrass. It gets weird.
Come #howl with the pack.
JOE DEP
Joe is the founder of the Shelf Life String Band and host of the weekly Tuesday Bluegrass Sessions at the Thunderbird Café in Pittsburgh's Lawrenceville neighborhood.
DAVE NEMO
Dave plays all the instruments, but mostly bass in this here band. You can catch him recording as Broke, Stranded & Ugly on Bandcamp, or singing Prince with the Wolf Tones.
PATRICK VARINE
Patrick is a Pittsburgh-area singer-songwriter and a member of the Sweaty Already String Band.
ARCHIE CORTEZ
Archie is a member of the Shelf String Band.