HANCOCK, NY — The Suitcase Junket will be at the Hancock Town Square, 20 E. Front St., on Friday, August 17 from 7:30 to 9 p.m.

The Suitcase Junket is Matt Lorenz: artist, tinkerer, Swamp Yankee, one-man band. From Lorenz’ penchant for thrift and ingenuity comes original rock anthems, mountain ballads, blues manifestos and dance-hall festivity. The music is laid out on instruments built of broken bottles, thrift-store forks, dried bones, gas cans, shoes, saw blades, a toy keyboard, salvaged instruments and an overhead compartment worth of luggage.

Lorenz was raised in Cavendish, VT, the son of schoolteachers. He learned to sing by copying his sister Kate. Lorenz graduated from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, in 2004, having taught himself to throat-sing, inspired by a South Indian cooking class. On moving day, he pulled a guitar filled with mold and worse for wear from a dorm dumpster. He fixed it up and started pulling songs out of it. That was the beginning.

Since then, The Suitcase Junket has built a powerful fan base in his native New England and far beyond. He 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.