Staff Bios

In addition to a global stable of freelance writers, historians and photographers, our staff consists of the following:

Publisher Jason Verlinde served as the former Managing Editor of Amazon.com’s music store. Before his seven-year stint in the world of e-commerce, Verlinde was an Associate Editor at Tower Records’ Pulse! magazine. He’s written about music for numerous dailies, weeklies and national magazines, including the Seattle Times, the Seattle Weekly, Option, Raygun and others. He plays guitar, mandolin and ukulele (though none all that well).

Editor-at-Large Michael John Simmons started playing electric guitar in punk bands as a teenager before being converted to acoustic music by a rabid Django Reinhardt fan. He spent 15 years working at Gryphon Stringed Instruments in Palo Alto, Calif., where he learned more about the construction and history of ukuleles, guitars, mandolins and banjos than was good for him. Simmons was the review editor at Fiddler Magazine and a contributing editor at Acoustic Guitar. He’s the author of Taylor Guitars: 30 Years of a New American Classic; the co-author of Acoustic Guitar: An Historical Look at the Composition, Construction, and Evolution of One of the World’s Most Beloved Instruments; and the co-founder of the Ukulele Occasional. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Creative consultant/jack-of-all-trades Ryan Richter has been playing guitar since the age of 12, taking the plunge after having the music of Tony Rice, Bela Fleck and Jerry Douglas being a constant background to life, continually heard through his bluegrass loving father's car stereo. He has been playing, and teaching guitar professionally in Seattle since arriving in 2001, is a lap/pedal steel player/builder and has contributed original music to clients like the FOX Sports Network, DreamWorks Animation. When not ogling over vintage guitars, Ryan can likely be found longing for warmer weather, and on the hunt for legitimate Mexican Food.

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