(HUDSON, N.Y.) – Matt Lorenz, the Northampton, Mass.-based indie-blues singer-songwriter who performs under the name The Suitcase Junket, bring his box of creative tricks to Club Helsinki Hudson on Saturday, June 3, at 9pm. Singer-songwriter Caroline Rose will warm up the crowd.

A one-man salvage specialist singing into the hollow of a dumpster guitar, railing on a box of twisted forks and bones, and belting out mountain ballads till the house sings back, Matt Lorenz aka the Suitcase Junket should appeal to fans of Tom Waits and White Stripes alike.

Matt Lorenz learned to sing by copying his sister Kate. (The siblings are two-thirds of the touring trio Rusty Belle.) Lorenz graduated from Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., in 2004, and on moving day, pulled his guitar, filled with mold and worse for wear, from a dormitory Dumpster. He fixed it up and started pulling songs out of it. That was the beginning.

As NPR said, “With 1950s amps and his guitar salvaged from a Dumpster — plus an old oversize suitcase he plays with his heel as a bass drum, a baby shoe (his baby shoe) hitting a gas can, a cooking pot, a circular saw blade, and a box of bones and silverware for added percussion — Lorenz creates a sound like no other. All that, and he writes clever, memorable songs, too.”

The Suitcase Junket is filling rooms and drawing festival crowds all over his native New England and beyond, from Signal Kitchen near the Canadian border to Wisconsin’s Mile of Music Festival, from Ireland’s pubs to Mountain Jam in the Catskills, from opening nights for Lake Street Dive and Charlie Musselwhite to Mountain Stage in West Virginia. He caught the attention of National Public Radio who chose his video session for “Earth Apple” from his 2015 album “Make Time” as one of the year’s favorite sessions.

 

For reservations in The Restaurant or in the club call 518.828.4800.