The Fretboard Journal is an archival-quality, quarterly publication celebrating the culture of fretted musical instruments. We chronicle the most innovative instruments (mandolins, banjos, ukuleles and—of course—guitars) and instrument makers of the last 150 or so years; the best players; and the most interesting tales from the world of music.
Our stories are comprehensive, witty, well-researched and have a visual impact. Ad space is limited to around 20% per issue. This, we hope, is a magazine you’ll want to collect every issue of.
In addition to a stable of freelance writers, historians and photographers from around the world, our small staff consists of the following:
Publisher Jason Verlinde most recently served as Managing Editor of Amazon.com’s music. 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’s an avid ukulele and tenor guitar player and the co-founder of the Ukulele Occasional.
Editor 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.
Art director Patrick David Barber served as both Assistant Art Director and Senior Editor for legendary Seattle music magazine The Rocket in the mid-’90s. He’s since designed various printed objects for Chronicle Books, Seal Press, Northwestern University Press, the Experience Music Project, Sub Pop Records, Summershine Records, City CarShare and other fine organizations. In his former life as an experimental musician, Patrick once played a guitar with a rotary power tool, but he swears it wasn’t a collectible instrument. And he claims it sounded pretty cool.
