You can see the Two Towers in person right now on the BGS enTour 2026. Find dates and locations here: https://www.boutiqueguitarshowcase.com/about-entour

In the summer of 1911, a 19-year-old J.R.R. Tolkien hiked through the Swiss Alps with a group of friends. What he found in the Lauterbrunnen Valley, with its 72 waterfalls, sheer cliffs and snow-capped peaks, would stay with him for the rest of his life. Decades later, he wrote to his son: "The hobbit's journey from Rivendell to the other side of the Misty Mountains is based on my adventures in 1911."

More than a century later, Italian luthier Giulio Negrini and Jamie Gale returned to that same valley to talk about what happens when a guitar becomes more than an instrument.

Giulio's Two Towers installation is two guitars built as one art piece, created for the 25th anniversary of the Lord of the Rings films and the 20th anniversary of Negrini Guitars. It captures a single moment from the book: the only flicker of light in the darkest chapter of the story. Isengard falls. Gandalf is rescued. Hope survives.

This is a conversation about Tolkien, craft, pop culture, what it means to build something that takes everything out of you, and why a guitar that can be played should never be chained to a wall.

To learn more about Giulio Negrini of GNG, click here https://www.boutiqueguitarshowcase.com/giulio-negrini-guitars-gng?rq=gng

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.

My guest today is Jerome Little, founder of Torzal Guitars and the mind behind the Natural Twist.

Jerome’s story begins in the Sierra Nevada mountains, where making things, solving problems, and figuring things out for yourself were simply part of growing up. He started playing bass as a teenager, studied music and acoustics at Hampshire College, and eventually brought those interests together when he began asking a deceptively simple question: why should a musician have to adapt their body to an instrument?

That question became his college thesis, the Natural Twist, and the beginning of a career that would put Jerome in the company of some remarkable instrument makers. He worked with Ken Parker during the production years of the Parker Fly, later joined Bill Collings in Austin, and carried lessons from both into a design philosophy that remains distinctly his own.

Our conversation moves through those formative experiences, the mentors who shaped him, the realities of ergonomics and repetitive injury, and his continuing search for better ways to build instruments, using materials intelligently, challenging convention, and never treating tradition as the end of the conversation.

Jerome is curious, thoughtful, and, perhaps most importantly, a maker who actually does something with his ideas.

I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with Jerome. I hope that you do as much as I did.

To learn more about Jerome Little and Torzal Guitars, check out https://www.boutiqueguitarshowcase.com/torzal-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.

Today's guest is luthier and architect Simon Padalka, a guitar maker with few peers.

In this conversation, we talk about the dramatic events that unfolded at the end of the 2025 Boutique Guitar Showcase enTour season, when the Padalka guitar that sold on tour was caught in a truck fire in Phoenix, Arizona. Thought lost, then to everyone's surprise, the guitar popped up again for sale a few weeks later, thickening an already unusual plot.

We talk about how to handle the tough situations that we inevitably encounter in business and life, the importance of keeping it cool when things get tough and how to make a Phoenix rise from the ashes of destruction.

If you care about boutique guitars, guitar designs, rare instruments or the human side of making and repairing things that are meant to last, this one is packed with insights, stories and a few moments you won't hear anywhere else.

I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with Simon Padalka, and I hope that you do as much as I did.

To learn more about Simon Padalka and Padalka Guitars, check out https://www.boutiqueguitarshowcase.com/padalka-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.