Life With Strings Attached

Welcome to Life With Strings Attached. I'm your host, Jamie Gale. This episode was filmed live on location at Tom Anderson Guitar Works in Southern California. My guest today is Markus Spohn, co-owner of Tom Anderson Guitar Works. Born in a mining region of West Germany, the story begins far from the guitar workshops in Southern California. Markus first came to Anderson as a player and a cust...

My guest today is famed archtop guitar maker Cristian Mirabella. Cristian's story begins in New York, on Long Island, in a family shaped by music, resilience and a deep sense of purpose.  At just 10 years old, Cristian started working at Ronnie's guitar shop, where he swept floors, polished instruments, learned repairs and found himself surrounded by working musicians, vintage archtops,...

Today's special biography episode with legendary guitar maker, Steve Klein, was filmed live on location in Northern California. Steve's story begins in San Francisco in 1949. It's a story shaped by Austrian immigrants who were ski instructors, scientists, artists, and the generation that came of age during one of the most creative periods in California's history. Over the next...

Today's special biography episode with legendary guitar maker, Ervin Somogyi, was filmed live at a location in Northern California. Ervin's tour begins in Budapest during the Second World War. The son of parents whose lives had been shaped by conflict and displacement, his early years carried him across Europe, through Cuba and Mexico, and eventually to the United States.  Along the way,...

This episode is filmed live on location at Anderson Guitarworks in Southern California, where I sat down with the company's co-owners Tom Anderson and Markus Spohn. Now, in their fifth decade, Tom Anderson Guitarworks has earned one of the best reputations in the guitar world. Tom speaks with the clarity of someone who has spent decades refining an idea, not simply chasing perfection, but sho...

This episode was filmed live on location in Tuscany, where we sat down with David Sutkin, founder of Bass UpFront. A global community of more than 36.000 bass players, builders, collectors, people who care deeply about the instrument. David is known for his remarkable collection, the Bass UpFront studio and the conversation he's held built around bass culture. He brings a player's ear, a...

This episode was filmed live on location in Tuscany, where I sat down with revolutionary guitar maker Sheldon Dingwall to document his biography.  He'll be the first to tell you that he didn't invent the multiscale concept, but he recognized what it could solve for the bass, replied it with purpose, and in 1993 brought the first production multiscale bass to the market. From there, Dingw...

Today's episode was filmed on location in Northern California at the headquarters of EMG. Our guest is Rob Turner, founder of EMG pickups, a company that helped change the sound, function, and possibility to the electric guitar, becoming synonymous with some of the most famous musicians in the world. Rob grew up in Long Beach, California, in a family where engineering, music, electronics, and...

Today's special biography episode was filmed on location at Tom Anderson Guitarworks in Southern California, with a man whose life's work is so interwoven into the modern history of guitar that it becomes difficult to see the forest for the trees. That man, of course, is Tom Anderson.  Tom's story starts in Southern California. Surf music, the British invasion, a transformative Dick...

My guest today is Eli Lester, owner and CEO of Two-Rock Amplifiers and Divided by Thirteen. Eli is someone deeply obsessed with sound, craftsmanship, history, and the idea that the smallest details still matter.  From vintage gear and vacuum tubes to photography, hot rods, and building amplifiers component by component, his world is driven by curiosity and an unwillingness to settle for “good enou...

In this episode, I'm sitting down with legendary guitar maker James Trussart in his workshop located in Echo Park, California. From growing up on a French horse farm near the border of Luxembourg to discovering American music through nearby airbases, to hitchhiking with aspirations of becoming a vagabond. James' story moves from farm life and American military influence to building his f...

In this episode, I’m joined by Linnea Sundberg who's joining us from Brooklyn, where she’s working at the intersection of music, technology, and the evolving artist economy.  From her early days in Sweden to Oxford, to investment banking at Goldman Sachs, and into the heart of Spotify’s rise, Linnea has been part of some of the most defining shifts in modern music. Today, she’s with UnitedMas...

Today, Michihiro Matsuda returns to the podcast. It feels less like a continuation and more like stepping back into an ongoing conversation that never really ended. When you walk into Michi’s workshop, you don’t just see guitars, you see ideas in motion. Instruments at different stages, each one exploring something distinct, each one asking a different question. As he put it, even having a few fin...

Welcome to Life With Strings Attached, I’m your host, Jamie Gale. In this episode, we’re stepping into a space that is, depending on who you ask, either full of possibility… or full of uncertainty.  My guest today is Sourabh Pateriya, founder and CEO of Soundverse AI, a platform working at the intersection of music, technology, and what it means to create in a world where the tools are changing fa...

Today’s conversation takes place in the workshop of Steve Klein. Someone who, for more than half a century, hasn’t just built guitars, but has continuously rethought what the instrument could be. This isn’t a conversation about legacy. It’s about what’s still unfolding. Steve is one of those rare builders who never settled into a fixed idea. While many define their work and then repeat it, he’s co...

Welcome to Life With Strings Attached, I’m your host Jamie Gale. There are certain figures in guitar making whose influence runs so deep, it begins to shape not just instruments, but the way we think about them. Ervin Somogyi is one of those voices. His influence can be felt across generations of makers. Names like Jason Kostal, Michihiro Matsuda, and Raymond Kraut. Each carrying forward a piece o...

Welcome to the 100th episode of Life With Strings Attached. There are certain conversations that stay with you. And sometimes, if you’re lucky, they’re the ones you get to return to. For this milestone episode, it felt right to come back to where it all began by welcoming back our very first guest, William “Grit” Laskin. Grit is one of the most respected voices in modern guitar making. But more th...

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 Francisco Cresp of Neural DSP,...

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 e...

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...

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...

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 ove...

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 ove...

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 instrument...

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...