Life With Strings Attached

In this episode, Robin Stummvoll returns to the podcast to talk about the release of Verso Instruments’ latest design and the broader ideas that continue to shape his work.

Robin is a designer and luthier whose work consistently challenges how we think about guitars, materials, and musical interfaces. This time, our focus turns to the lap steel. An instrument with no fixed archetype and enormous expressive potential. From innovation in tuning and construction to the physics of sound, perception, and play, we explore how curiosity drives both design and music.

Our conversation also moves beyond instruments, touching on childhood creativity, learning through play, emotional connection, and why making sound matters. Especially in uncertain times.

I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation with Robin, and I hope you do as much as I did.

Watch the video version on YouTube:
🔗 YouTube Channel – Life With Strings Attached

Learn more about Life With Strings Attached, Boutique Guitar Showcase, and Jamie Gale's work in the guitar industry:
🔗 Boutique Guitar Showcase
🔗 Jamie Gale

Thank you for listening and supporting the ongoing conversation between music, makers, history and the future.

Welcome to Life with Strings Attached. Today's episode is recorded live in Anaheim, California at The NAMM Show as part of the 125th anniversary of NAMM within the 10th annual Boutique Guitar Showcase. 

As part of these special anniversary events, we moderated a three part series of panel discussions on the unwritten future of guitar. 

This second part features Bob Taylor, Ola Strandberg and Sheldon Dingwall as we discuss 'User Interface' in Guitar Design, live from the BGS Booth at The NAMM Show 2025. 

Our panelists are some of the most influential people in the guitar business today. I hope you enjoy this special three part series on Life with Strings Attached.

Watch the video version on YouTube:
🔗 YouTube Channel – Life With Strings Attached

Learn more about Life With Strings Attached, Boutique Guitar Showcase, and Jamie Gale's work in the guitar industry:
🔗 Boutique Guitar Showcase
🔗 Jamie Gale

Thank you for listening and supporting the ongoing conversation between music, makers, history and the future.

Welcome to Life with Strings Attached. Today's episode is recorded live in Anaheim, California at The NAMM Show as part of the 125th anniversary of NAMM within the 10th annual Boutique Guitar Showcase. 

As part of these special anniversary events, we moderated a three part series of panel discussions on the unwritten future of guitar. 

Our panelists are some of the most influential people in the guitar business today. I hope you enjoy this special three part series on Life with Strings Attached.

Watch the video version on YouTube:
🔗 YouTube Channel – Life With Strings Attached

Learn more about Life With Strings Attached, Boutique Guitar Showcase, and Jamie Gale's work in the guitar industry:
🔗 Boutique Guitar Showcase
🔗 Jamie Gale

Thank you for listening and supporting the ongoing conversation between music, makers, history and the future.

Welcome to Life With Strings Attached. I’m your host, Jamie Gale.
In this episode, I’m joined by Jason Verlinde, publisher and co-founder of The Fretboard Journal; one of the most respected voices in guitar culture today.

Jason’s work has always focused on documenting the deeper stories behind guitars, the builders, the players, the history, and the community that surrounds the instrument. For over twenty years, The Fretboard Journal has prioritised quality, curiosity, and independence over trends and hype.

In our conversation, we talk about Jason’s journey from music journalism to building a publication rooted in personal taste, the balance between commerce and culture, and how the Fretboard Summit has become a meaningful gathering point for the guitar community.

I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with Jason, and I hope you do as much as I did.

Watch the video version on YouTube:
🔗 YouTube Channel – Life With Strings Attached

Learn more about Life With Strings Attached, Boutique Guitar Showcase, and Jamie Gale's work in the guitar industry:
🔗 Boutique Guitar Showcase
🔗 Jamie Gale

Thank you for listening and supporting the ongoing conversation between music, makers, history and the future.

Welcome to Life With Strings Attached, I’m your host, Jamie Gale. In this episode I’m sitting in the home of Lou Vergne for a very special collector-focused conversation, one that isn’t really about collecting at all.

It’s about relationships; with instruments, with the people who make them, and with the experiences that give those objects meaning. We talk about discovery over acquisition, use over display, and why definition can sometimes feel like confinement.

Lou shares what it means to live with guitars rather than simply own them, how curiosity guides his choices, and why the stories behind an instrument matter just as much as the sound it makes.

Watch the video version on YouTube:
🔗 YouTube Channel – Life With Strings Attached

Learn more about Life With Strings Attached, Boutique Guitar Showcase, and Jamie Gale's work in the guitar industry:
🔗 Boutique Guitar Showcase
🔗 Jamie Gale

Thank you for listening and supporting the ongoing conversation between music, makers, history and the future.

Today on Life With Strings Attached, I’m joined by Adam Miller. A musician whose work lives at the intersection of creativity, technology, and deeply personal musical expression.

Adam is one of those rare artists who understands music not just as performance, but as process. From recording and production, to collaboration, touring, and the evolving relationship between musicians and the instruments they choose.

In this conversation, we explore how technology has reshaped the way music is made and released, why Adam still thinks in albums rather than singles, and how boutique guitar makers, multi-scale design, and extended-range instruments have influenced his sound.

This is a wide-ranging, thoughtful conversation with an artist who’s always asking why and not just how.

Watch the video version on YouTube:
🔗 YouTube Channel – Life With Strings Attached

Learn more about Life With Strings Attached, Boutique Guitar Showcase, and Jamie Gale's work in the guitar industry:
🔗 Boutique Guitar Showcase
🔗 Jamie Gale

Thank you for listening and supporting the ongoing conversation between music, makers, history and the future.

Today on Life With Strings Attached, I’m joined by luthier Michael Sankey.
This conversation is rooted in a simple but demanding idea: showing up. 

Showing up to the work, to curiosity, and to questions that don’t have easy answers. Mike’s guitars are known for resisting category, but that resistance comes from something deeper. A willingness to examine why we do things the way we do, and whether those ideas still serve us.

We talk about originality, tradition, and what happens when instruments are treated not just as tools, but as living objects shaped by listening and intent. From ultralight guitars to broader reflections on art, culture, and change, this episode is less about making a case and more about staying open.

Watch the video version on YouTube:
🔗 YouTube Channel – Life With Strings Attached

Learn more about Life With Strings Attached, Boutique Guitar Showcase, and Jamie Gale's work in the guitar industry:
🔗 Boutique Guitar Showcase
🔗 Jamie Gale

Thank you for listening and supporting the ongoing conversation between music, makers, history and the future.

Welcome to Life With Strings Attached. I’m your host, Jamie Gale. Today, I’m joined by someone whose curiosity about the guitar has taken him across countries, genres, and generations of musical history: Julien Bitoun. 

Julien is a guitarist, an author, a content creator, and a lecturer. You’ve read his work in major French publications, and you may know his books Les Paul: 70 Years, Guitars and Heroes, Gallagher’s Guitars, and Woodstock Live.

What I love most about Julien isn’t just his knowledge, it’s his spirit of exploration. He follows his curiosity wherever it leads, whether he’s tracing the cultural geography of American guitar making or creating something new simply because it brings him joy. His career wasn’t planned; it unfolded because he kept saying yes, kept learning, and kept playing.

Today, we talk about creativity, opportunity, and what happens when you allow adventure, rather than fear, to shape your path. I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with Julien. I hope you did as much as I did.

Watch the video version on YouTube:
🔗 YouTube Channel – Life With Strings Attached

Learn more about Life With Strings Attached, Boutique Guitar Showcase, and Jamie Gale's work in the guitar industry:
🔗 Boutique Guitar Showcase
🔗 Jamie Gale

Thank you for listening and supporting the ongoing conversation between music, makers, history and the future.

Welcome to Life With Strings Attached. I'm your host, Jamie Gale. In this episode, I sit down with Ola Strandberg to talk about a shift that's happening right now in the guitar world. The next generation musicians isn't looking back. They're looking for instruments that fit their bodies, their workflows, and the music that they're making today. 

On tour with the boutique guitar showcase and at NAMM, we've watched younger players and younger shop staff gravitate towards guitars that are lighter, more ergonomic, more adaptable. Ola has been designing with those needs in mind for years. So his perspective on what comes next is what I wanted to discuss.

Together, we explore how the guitar is evolving and what it means to build for musicians of today and the future. I've thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with Ola Strandberg and I hope that you do as much as I do.

Watch the video version on YouTube:
🔗 YouTube Channel – Life With Strings Attached

Learn more about Life With Strings Attached, Boutique Guitar Showcase, and Jamie Gale's work in the guitar industry:
🔗 Boutique Guitar Showcase
🔗 Jamie Gale

Thank you for listening and supporting the ongoing conversation between music, makers, history and the future.

In this special biography episode of Life With Strings Attached we explore the life and legacy of one of the most significant luthiers of our time, John Monteleone.

Born in Manhattan and raised in Islip, John grew up in a world shaped by sculpture, architecture, and music, thanks to a family deeply rooted in the arts.

From his early work repairing instruments at Mandolin Brothers to creating the Grand Artist mandolin and his celebrated archtop guitars, John developed a voice unmistakably his own. Musicians, collectors, and peers immediately recognized the “thumbprint” of a Monteleone.

His Four Seasons guitars entered the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and his craftsmanship inspired artists like Béla Fleck, Eric Clapton, and Mark Knopfler, who even honoured John with the song Monteleone.

Today, we trace the story of a maker whose curiosity, discipline, and joy have shaped a remarkable life in guitars.

Watch the video version on YouTube:
🔗 YouTube Channel – Life With Strings Attached

Learn more about Life With Strings Attached, Boutique Guitar Showcase, and Jamie Gale's work in the guitar industry:
🔗 Boutique Guitar Showcase
🔗 Jamie Gale

Thank you for listening and supporting the ongoing conversation between music, makers, history and the future.