The Suitcase Junket: A 21st Century One Man Band [Berkshire on Stage]

Photograph by Andrzej Pilarczyk

Artist, tinkerer, tunesmith, Swamp Yankee — The Suitcase Junket is a one-man salvage specialist with an unorthodox approach to his craft: singing into the hollow of a Dumpster guitar and railing on a box of twisted forks and bones. He belts out mountain ballads ‘til the house sings back. On at 8pm on Saturday (June 25), FreshGrass presents the Suitcase Junket in his MASS MoCA debut.

Pulling his moniker from the luggage he sits on to perform, the Suitcase Junket’s (given name: Matt Lorenz) music spans from soft folk-rock to punk-infused blues, while his knack for soaring throat-singing contrasts with his aggressive strumming and baby-shoe kick drum. With raw, lo-fi instrumentation yielding impressively large results, his sound is an achievement — you’d never imagine the music coming from just one player. Lorenz’s songs form a colorful sonic palette that serves as an exemplar of innovation in the folk genre — exactly what FreshGrass looks for in its performers. No Depression says his songwriting is “crafted and honed, not strewn about” with “a tinge of Waits and a hint of Dylan, in both vocal styling and social consciousness.”

The Suitcase Junket already has three studio albums to his name — Sever and Lift (2009), Knock It Down (2011), and Make Time (2015) — in addition to his recently released EP Dying Star (March 2016), on the Northampton-based Signature Sounds label. Lorenz has shared the stage with Los Lobos, Sister Sparrow & the Dirty Birds, and Jackie Greene, and has toured extensively throughout the U.S. as the Suitcase Junket, winning hearts wherever he rolls into town.

Click here to read the rest at Berkshire on Stage…