The Suitcase Junket “Pile Driver” 2017. Signature Sounds Recordings. Still coming down off my Mile of Music fest high from this past weekend, I’m spinning another favorite artist who was a new to us (he’s played MoM years past), the one-man band of Matt Lorenz, who was accidentally – hilariously – introduced at the Paper Valley Grand Ballroom performance as The Suitcase Junkie, to which he dryly quipped, “yep, I’ve got suitcases running through my veins.” The description from the MoM website initially drew me in: “the songs are played on instruments built of broken bottles, twisted forks, dried bones, gas cans, shoes, saw blades, a toy keyboard and an overhead compartment worth of luggage.”

A self-decrbied “swamp yankee,” Lorenz’s sound is at once traditional (mixing Americana, folk, blues and honky tonk) and utterly modern-experimental and unique. Lorenz managed to pack an entire stage’s worth of sound into a small piece of stage real estate and sprinkled warm, amusing anecdotes and jokes throughout the performance, including introducing his band: “the left heel plays…etc.” Because his show at Mile of Music was my first exposure to The Suitcase Junket (and we picked up this LP at the end of the concert), I’m not entirely certain of what tracks he played from the album, but I know he played “What Was I Gonna Say?” as he got the entire audience to sing a call-and-response during the chorus (here is a great video from a past performance that also is a great example of his onstage charm and humor). I think he also played “The Next Act,” the lead track from Pile Driver as well as “Beta Star” and “Swamp Chicken.” According to his website, The Suitcase Junket has combined streams of 1.25 million on Spotify and was named to Spotify’s Best of 2016 Folk & Americana and Blues & Roots Rock playlists. Lorenz 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.