Episode 5: Bring it On Down to TunaTown!

Episode Transcript

Note: a machine made this, so it’s not perfect, but if you’re hearing impaired and have any questions about what we said, please feel free to ask us in the comments or send us an email with the form below.

Leila: Hey

[00:00:13] Emily: everybody. Welcome to the get offset podcast. I’m Emily.

[00:00:17] Leila: I’m Andrew and I’m Layla. Woo.

[00:00:21] Emily: Now I know what you all are thinking. Zachary has changed. I’m kidding. He couldn’t make it tonight, but, uh, my good friend, Layla, who is an excellent guitar builder was gracious enough to join us instead.

[00:00:36] Leila: Thanks for having me.

[00:00:38] Emily: Of course. We’re glad that we could, we could fit you in before you go to your next school.

[00:00:42] Leila: Yeah.

[00:00:43] Emily: For those of you who don’t know, Layla is the founder of tuna tone instruments and she builds some really beautiful guitars and. Um, I feel very lucky. She’s going to be building me one.

[00:01:00] Leila: I feel pumped for your build Emily.

[00:01:05] Emily: So, um, just to bring it back to, uh, a big theme of our podcast, I have to ask you, why did you name your company to NuTone?

[00:01:15] Leila: Well, that’s a very good question. And there’s a really technical answer actually. Um, my. Cat’s name is tuna and actually my house, his name is tuna town. So it only made sense for my guitars to be called tuna tone.

[00:01:39] And. I don’t suppose your cat looks a bit like John Krasinski. Oh, sorry. I don’t, I don’t pick up on that reference. Oh, it’s a reference to the office. There’s a character in the office. Uh, Jim helper and he’s referred to by my personal favorite character, Andy. Oh, big tuna. Yes. No, actually today, my tuna is like a little too nice.

[00:02:01] She’s like, she’s really compact and she’s super fierce and an outdoor cat. So she’s like, she’s small and she’s got short legs, but she’s super fierce. Like if a cat could have a six pack, like tuna,

[00:02:20] Emily: Oh, she’s back.

[00:02:24] Leila: Actually, you know, you know, the part on a cat, like on their belly, that sort of like, it’s like a little bit of a force

[00:02:33] Emily: pause. Okay.

[00:02:36] Leila: I looked it up and that’s actually called a primordial pouch and what it is it’s because when cats are fighting, they’re up on their hind legs and they’re scratching each other.

[00:02:46] And it’s actually like a second layer of skin that is. Anatomically just there since birth in order to basically protect their organs in case, you know, in a fight they’re gashed. And some of my friends say that Tina has a primordial six pack.

[00:03:07] Exactly. Why I’m a little overweight. It’s just in case I get mugged.

[00:03:11] Emily: Yeah. So that, you know, it’s not going to get anything important.

[00:03:16] Leila: Hi, your playing has been foiled by all of the six backs. That contributed to this lack of six back.

[00:03:25] Emily: I think we call those a pony keg. That’s a little keg. Or if you’re in Ohio, we call ’em drive throughs, pony kegs, like the drive through where you buy your pony keg.

[00:03:35] It’s called a pony keg.

[00:03:38] Leila: I appreciate it. Not being like a, a giant horse keg. So, you know, in the Midwest, like I like every time I go to the Midwest, I feel skinny. And then I come back to like the West coast. I don’t.

[00:03:51] Emily: So. Same, ah, different food in the Midwest Laila. You got to go to the Midwest

[00:03:57] Leila: and I haven’t traveled in Nash through the, through the States.

[00:04:01] Honestly,

[00:04:02] Emily: you don’t need to go to the Midwest. Layla, actually, Minneapolis is great. I’ll be going there in about a month to see a friend

[00:04:11] Leila: I’ve heard. This is really cool.

[00:04:14] Emily: It is. They have this big, um, Sculpture park. And it has a big cherry spoon bridge, which you just had to Google and they have this tree and this tree has a bunch of wind chimes and they’re all playing all the notes from one song.

[00:04:29] So you stand underneath that. You’re just being like flaked by music. It’s pretty cool. And then they have a giant blue. Chicken statue. That’s well, it’s a rooster. It’s a, I mean, it’s a big blue cock and Andrew, you complete that out. It’s literally called

[00:04:45] Leila: them word. Was it attended for its original academic purpose?

[00:04:48] Emily: It’s it’s literally called big blue cock, I think. But I digress. Is this a guitar? Is this the guitar podcast or is it a big blue cock podcast?

[00:04:58] Leila: It’s a cat’s podcast where we talk about cat themes guitars.

[00:05:03] Emily: Exclusively. Oh man. So Layla has the best cat theme guitars around.

[00:05:10] Leila: And actually I was thinking about, I was talking to a friend the other day about, you know, whether or not I should add like a little about tuna, um, kind of tab on my website and.

[00:05:22] You know, it kind of makes sense that the answer should probably be no, but at the same time, I really would like to do that just as an excuse to file through all my photos of her and find like the cutest ones. Um, but then I just think like, you know, she’s this. She’s the, sort of this, the small creature, but she’s also fierce.

[00:05:48] She has a lot of attack. She’s robust. Um, but she’s also, she, you know, she’s beautiful, but not fancy. And I just think, yeah, I think that all these things could actually apply to the guitars I make. So I feel like I should probably write something and put it on, on the website,

[00:06:08] Emily: having picked up your guitar.

[00:06:10] I I fully agree. And didn’t you just, I think today you just posted a picture of how much your guitar weighs less than six pounds. That’s a Sprite.

[00:06:22] Leila: Yeah. It’s two, 2.4. Well, I guess you don’t work in kilos, but yet it’s like 2.4

[00:06:27] Emily: to six. Yeah. It’s like 5.8 pounds or something.

[00:06:30] Leila: Yeah.

[00:06:31] Emily: If you buy a lightweight guitar body, Those are usually six pounds just for the body.

[00:06:37] Leila: No hardware, no net. Yours

[00:06:39] Emily: are under six pounds. They don’t have neck dive. They’re very comfortable. They’re not, they’re really not that like, they don’t feel like a toy.

[00:06:47] Leila: No, my goal was to make them like a little bit more compact. Very similar to tuna. She’s only slightly smaller than a regular adult gap.

[00:06:57] Um, only slightly smaller than like, let’s say a Strat or something like that. Maybe like two or three inches shorter than a regular sort of strap. Um, But yeah, just that I feel makes a little bit of a difference without. Yeah. Like you say, being cartoonish or being, feeling like an instrument, that’s not serious.

[00:07:19] Like it, it’s still, I think it’s not a first act and it’s very apparent. Yeah.

[00:07:23] Emily: Yeah. They’re first, second guitars in Canada.

[00:07:26] Leila: No, actually I actually, I don’t know if they do

[00:07:28] Emily: they’re a little like $99 guitars that you buy and like, um, Walmart

[00:07:33] Leila: exclusively at Walmart. Yeah. It’s the, it’s the first act guitar, the, the Walmart guitar that you got Emily and, uh,

[00:07:43] Emily: yes, I bought a bottle loaded body first act for, um, I think it was marked for $20 and I ended up spending 15 bucks on it.

[00:07:53] Cause I’m like, I don’t, I don’t $20 like this I $15 like this, um, struct it, repainted it, put a better pickup in it. And, uh, it’s. Everyone’s like, it’s just beautiful. You know, it sounds fine really is like some people like the, these weird, like, plastic-y like, you know, a first act guitar when you see it, because the pickups are very unique.

[00:08:17] They’re very plasticky and they kind of are almost oval shape, but, uh, yeah, it’s, uh, it’s fine. And I think my friend mostly hangs it on the wall as art and her little, her little Vikings, Minneapolis corner. It does look like a Vikings helmet. Yeah. But those are first actual guitars. And I think, um, I think there are a lot of artists who have signature first act models or something.

[00:08:44] Leila: Adam Levine,

[00:08:45] Emily: Adam Levine for Paul Westerberg of the replacements has his own first sack model. And he actually plays

[00:08:51] Leila: that thing. Wow. That’s wild.

[00:08:54] Emily: Yeah. That’s Minneapolis punk rock. It’s like a, it’s like a Minneapolis same episode. I’m so sorry. I didn’t plan this. So Layla, I know that you and I had a very long conversation up in Vancouver.

[00:09:06] That was a lot of fun.

[00:09:07] Leila: It was so nice. Yeah. That was a really nice evening.

[00:09:10] Emily: Yeah. One thing, one thing I really thought was interesting that, um, that we talked about was your. Philosophy when it came to building and using resources. And I thought it’d be really cool if you could just talk to us a little bit about that.

[00:09:26] Leila: Yeah. I, so I guess like my guitars are. Kind of inspired by sort of vintage and catalog guitars from like the 1960s, like in America and in Japan, like, I really just love den electros and silver tones and Ks and, and the taste goes and the taste goes, yes, I loved high school guitars. And, um, Anyways. So like something that I really, really love about those guitars at that time was that they had this kind of like, they were super futuristic, right?

[00:10:03] Like they were, um, yeah, just their shapes and materials. Like they just kind of spoke to this like future. And now when you kind of look at them, you sort of see like that they. They were kind of speaking to this, like to this future, but still sort of like limited to, um, the materials and like the.

[00:10:26] Processes of manufacturing that existed at the time. And I think there’s just such a beauty in being able to look at an instrument that somebody was thinking about in this like futuristic way, but is also really kind of settled into the time that it was actually made. And it started, I don’t know. I guess it started me thinking about just manufacturing and what.

[00:10:55] But like, I guess what, like that future that they were speaking to is kind of our present now. And, but I’m, I’m sort of inspired by the limits that they sort of ran into in terms of, uh, the materials that were available and like the manufacturing processes that, that were available to them, to like builders at that time.

[00:11:16] And, um, so I also come from. And a province in Canada called Alberta that, um, has like one of the world’s largest or the world’s largest industrial project, which is the Alberta tar sands. Um, and the entire economy. I mean, even. Federally is sort of, uh, is, is sort of, I guess, organized like around, uh, and reliant on, um, on these Alberta tar sands and they’ve, you know, anyway, the province and the nation have done.

[00:11:55] Yeah, very bad job of diversifying. And so. There is a lot. So in the city that I live in, even though it’s not the point of extraction, it’s the, it’s the largest city close to the point of extraction. Um, there’s a ton of manufacturing that happens here. And so, um, I, so what I’ve started to do is I’ve started to get really interested in not just designing, like sort of the shapes of, you know, the.

[00:12:23] Body or the headstock or things like that, but starting to kind of get interested in, in making my own sort of bridges and, um, even like the mechanics around like, you know, this sort of thing and, um, like around parts and anyway, or like neck plates, tail pieces, like all that kind of stuff. And so just thinking about, yeah, just thinking about, I guess the limitations or what’s available like today, um, I’m kind of interested in using like, materials that I’m not shipping over borders or anything like that, that I’m able to find locally, like in town.

[00:13:03] And so, yeah, I’m often, yeah, kind of like running around to industrial areas in the city, like, you know, buying bras or, you know, getting to know people who work in steel manufacturing sites to like get parts made like this sort of thing. Just trying to like localize that sort of building. Not for this, not in this sort of a philosophy around, you know, I don’t know, like similar to like eating local necessarily.

[00:13:31] It’s almost as like, um, almost as like a similar kind of thing, limitation to manufacturing as people in the 1960s, for example, would have kind of run into, um, when designing still these like, you know, super futuristic instruments. Well, a lot of those, a lot of those guitars were made in Japanese factories.

[00:13:51] And a few of them have just come to become reached this legendary status, but it’s not, I mean, just in general, the heavy machinery, a lot of the routing had to be done by hand for instance. And so it was my understanding. Yeah. And there was lots of like, I mean, just looking at the instruments, I can see that, um, there’s lots of them.

[00:14:12] It, like you mentioned tastes go guitar is like, there’s so much metal on those guitars sometimes. Like, just like. Well, like an incredible amount of metal and I’m just, yeah. It’s like, I I’ve, yeah. I’ve gotten interested in sort of learning about kind of casting metal and I made myself a little forge at one point.

[00:14:31] And, um, what sort of melted down, like, you know, Bicycle rim to see about, you know, could I cast things out of aluminum and things like that, but anyways, I wasn’t able to do it in a super refined way. So, um, so I, you know, started using brass and steel instead, but, um, yeah, but I think all of it’s really cool.

[00:14:52] Yeah, definitely. So, yeah. If you’re sourcing things locally, like what kind of woods are available in Alberta? I haven’t been there. And so, I mean, I know there’s, Canada is just up. I actually read an article today. Uh, unfortunately, um, stating that say Canada is one of, um, the top countries in the world, responsible for deforce.

[00:15:15] Um, and, uh, that old growth forests are still sort of getting chopped down all over the place. But, um, this light guitar that, um, that I,

[00:15:25] Emily: um, that I

[00:15:26] Leila: posted about today and the one that Emily you played, um, I was just using like, I used spruce, which grows here, but I use it cause gruesome the spruce, which I believe is like more sort of in BC.

[00:15:43] Um, And Walnut. And then the fingerboard is a Robia or black locust, which, um, is, is sort of native to North America. But, uh, none of these woods are really sort of like native to Alberta specifically. Um, but, uh, rebellious sort of grows around like the, in the Southern States, like around the Appalachian mountains, basically.

[00:16:09] Emily: But you and I talked about how things like Rosewood used to be such a plentiful would and just where

[00:16:16] Leila: yeah. Brazilian Rosewood in particular. And I mean, an Indian Rosewood then sort of like, you know, was the stand in or whatever. And now it’s on this IDs list. As of January, 2018, it was put on, it was put on the city’s list.

[00:16:33] Yeah. I worked for a guitar center that time, and I cannot tell you how many questions I got about that. What that meant. For people who wanted Rosewood and I, you would not believe how many people were upset that that meant Rosewood was going to be less available. Yeah. Isn’t that like, like, isn’t that such a funny thing to be upset about in the sense that for me, what’s upsetting is deforestation is the fact that, you know, Rosewood, I mean, it is.

[00:17:00] You know, to work with it, to work with it in the shop is something like quite special because it’s so fragrant, but it’s also deforested because it’s used for perfume. Um, and yeah, I, Indian Rosewood in particular. And, um, I like to be upset about not being able to have that as a fingerboard versus being upset about.

[00:17:26] You know, capitalism or you know, about like, like why this is even happening. Like why trees are endangered in the first place, like the economic systems that, you know, that, that make that possible. I, I don’t know. And I mean,

[00:17:44] Emily: obviously you can, you can get that color with other woods.

[00:17:48] Leila: Yeah. And actually, so have you guys, uh, have you guys, uh, like sort of.

[00:17:54] I don’t know, like, are you familiar with them? Uh, with rock light. Wow. Yeah. So they, if you look it up online, they unfortunately have a pretty cryptic sort of description of what this material is, but, um, they make something called , which is, um, Which is basically a black wood that you can, you can use for fingerboards for binding for all this stuff.

[00:18:23] It has a similar hardness to Ebony. Um, but my understanding is that, so it’s not Ebony, so it’s not on the city’s list. But my understanding is that they use, um, woods that are. Like abundant and sort of equally like hard and make a kind of composite that is, that has like a grain pattern. Cause theirs would involve to the process.

[00:18:48] Um, but, uh, I think there’s like, there’s some kind of like, like binding process, like an adhesion process. You know, for this wood that they use, but, um, I made a fingerboard out of it recently. That was like, I mean, it’s really gorgeous. It’s really nice to use lots of Luther’s use this stuff and they’re actually, they’ve recently come out with a second product, which, um, Basically, it’s like a, it’s like a Rosewood replacement.

[00:19:16] So that again, you can have, um, a fingerboard or binding or whatever that is like a comparable hardness. And aesthetically looks very similar to Rosewood, but it’s not like it’s, it’s not on this lady’s list and it’s not sort of yeah. It’s, it’s not like it’s not using an endangered kind of species of trees.

[00:19:37] Right. And like that. Yeah.

[00:19:38] Emily: And to be honest, I would think that 99% of the humans in the world could barely tell the difference if at all.

[00:19:45] Leila: Oh, I would, yes. Like 99 plus. Yeah.

[00:19:51] Emily: It’s just one of those things, you know, people have their ideas about, you know, well, this guitar had that, so it must be, you know, the Beale and all, and that’s what I want.

[00:20:01] People, I think want very much what their idols play. Like I think a lot. People want that. I mean, I played jazz masters because all the SKUs Ella played a jazz master. And if you’re, if you’re really into specs, you’d be like, Oh, well, he had that beautiful Walnut thoughty in that Rosewood, neck and blah, blah, blah, blah, fret board.

[00:20:18] And, uh, I don’t know. I just could never get that. I it’s funny because I did a video for Eastwood a while back and I didn’t even talk about tonewood, but I just said the word tone would. And the only negative comment I got on that video was some guy who wrote disliked because of tonewood. So obviously it’s not as in Vogue, as it was before, or people maybe have different opinions about it, but I, there are people who believe that tonewood matters and there’s people who believe it.

[00:20:50] Leila: Doesn’t I think of all the parts of an electric guitar when it really comes down to it, I think. No, this is obviously not the same for an acoustic guitar, but for the electric guitar, the, what I think has the least amount of impact of all of the other components. Not saying it doesn’t have an impact, but cause obviously like if you play a bachelor guitar versus an older guitar with a string through body, the sustain is going to be notably different.

[00:21:15] But I mean you, there not as much of a difference as the pickups or is the strings of the tutors all of the above. Uh, the way I like to think about the. The site is that the sites list is a, uh, I have a plant in, on my porch. It’s a mint plant and I like to make tea with it. Now, if I were to have everybody that I know come over and also have some tea, uh, I would kill the entire plant.

[00:21:45] And assuming that it’s the only mint plant on the face of the planet, once it’s gone, it’s gone. And so if I, if I just make myself see every once in a while, I have to let it grow back into maintain the healthy status, then that’s what I’ve got to do to continue, enjoy mint tea. But if we keep going this mint tea is going to be gone for good.

[00:22:02] And that’s kind of a problem because then nobody gets it.

[00:22:06] Emily: I think that people don’t quite understand the idea of. Of once something has gone has gone, or you have to wait a very long time for it to come back because most people don’t grow up on like farms. Like they don’t understand the idea of, you know, if you plant corn every single year, even though it’s a big cash crop, you will annihilate the soil.

[00:22:27] You have to rotate your crops and you have to be patient and you have to do this and you have to do that. You can’t over farm your land. Cause if you do. It’s worthless for years and you have to burn and it’s do crazy things, but Santo, but

[00:22:41] Leila: that’s a different thing altogether.

[00:22:43] Emily: That’s your, what?

[00:22:44] Leila: Mo Mo Monsanto Monsato.

[00:22:48] Oh, right. Sure. I’m

[00:22:50] Emily: not familiar.

[00:22:51] Leila: Oh, just, um, Santo is like a, I mean, it’s a huge, they, they just, they changed the name, uh, or they bought into a different company. Uh, what was that name now? But anyway, Monsanto, is this, I mean, just like a pure evil, um, international conglomerate, that’s basically, um, that’s basically like changed the face of agriculture.

[00:23:18] Permanently and like, and food sort of permanently. So they have these like horrible practices of, um, essentially sort of, um, essentially you sort of, you know, Force like of, uh, of patenting seeds, which is like, kind of incredible. Cause how can you patent a thing of nature, but, um, they have the thing where they sort of patent seeds, um, and then farmers are essentially forced to, um,

[00:23:48] Emily: Pay for it because it spreads to their, into their lands, right?

[00:23:53] Leila: Yes, exactly. So had to purchase those seeds in, you know, to the tune of like, you know, hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars per year. Um, but then also to, uh, buy their, their pesticides, which is Roundup. Um, And yeah, if there’s like a single seed, this like patented seed that, you know, flies from one, one farm to another, if Monsanto finds that seed, like in a different field and that farmer didn’t pay for that sort of, that, um, For that seed because it’s patented and Monsanto, is it there?

[00:24:28] It’s basically considered theft and like farmers have, there is, um, a really notable story in Canada where that happened. And, um, he like this, this farmer essentially had to burn. All of his crops, like in that entire year, because it was, um, because he’d be sort of like, like his doing their corn be ruined.

[00:24:51] Yeah. Like his, his entire livelihood, like for many, many years would be, would be ruined just because like, they found evidence of Monsanto like seeds on his farm, but like that could have happened in the wind. Right. I mean, that’d be like, if you sneezed on me and then I had to like burn all my guitars.

[00:25:09] Yeah, exactly, exactly. But, um, yeah. Anyway, they’re, I mean, they’re, they’re too evil to be able to sort of condense into a slow elevator ride. Um, they’re just so awful. And actually they recently changed their name because their name is associated with that, the name, they also just merged with a giant pharma company, so, yeah.

[00:25:29] Right.

[00:25:30] Emily: Yeah, man.

[00:25:31] Leila: Yeah. Terrible. Yeah, I do have to agree with you. Um, Andrew, like what you were saying before about, um, like, or, or this sort of idea of tonewood. I mean, I think, you know, there was a time I, I’m not really a guitar player. And so when I started building guitars, I just started doing like a, B.

[00:25:56] Boatload of research basically. And so some of them, the research that I was doing, like if I was curious about a particular technique or this sort of thing, and this was like, before I sort of, um, Had a community of like, you know, high quality builders around me that I could like ask questions to. Um, but, uh, I would look on like sort of internet forums and this kind of thing, just to like see what people were thinking.

[00:26:21] And I mean, it’s like kind of incredible, like is, you know, there’s, you know, you, I remember sort of typing into a forum, something about using milk paint as a. You know, as a, as a finish or as part of a finish for a guitar and, you know, people asking questions. Oh yeah. Like how this milk paint and like the tone of the guitar.

[00:26:44] And I just thought like, Nevermind, like, nevermind. Like I’m just going to like X out of this, like 10, because to me like what a ridiculous question, like yeah, of course everything affects tone, everything affects tone, but the question is not, you know, does it affect tone? The question is how significantly does it affect tone and.

[00:27:06] You’re right. Like there’s certain things that are very significantly can exec tell him like, pickups, but also even just like the execution or construction of a, you know, of the instrument, like the materials that are chosen, like all, all this kind of stuff and not even materials as in. You know, is it Brazilian Rose Rosewood versus Indian Rosewood?

[00:27:27] It’s like, um, just like, like the sort of quality of the wood or, you know, this sort of thing. Like I think all those things do are going to affect the tone. Like more significantly than some things that, you know, people on forums just get really hung up on. And I think they get hung up on them based on what you were talking about, Emily, which is this attachment to.

[00:27:51] History like attachment to the guitars that their idols played. And there’s this idea that yeah. You know, because like their favorite musician played this guitar, it means that, you know, uh, it means that an Ash body is better than an all their body. Well, is it like, is that really the logic? And I personally don’t think so.

[00:28:15] Emily: And is that the thing you’re going to notice or are you going to notice the weight? Are you. Mostly the weight, the balance. I mean, it can affect those things for sure. But I mean, it’s just, it’s not going to be a noticeable difference. There’s no way, but quality. The quality is definitely what matters from start to finish.

[00:28:37] Leila: I agree.

[00:28:37] Emily: Yeah, but speaking, speaking of builders, you know, I think that a lot of people in the guitar community, especially people who spend a lot of time in gear groups and people who talk about boutique builders, I think that they could name a lot of builders. I’m not sure how many women they could name who are builders.

[00:28:59] And I think it’s sort of funny. And I don’t know if it’s that as a woman, I. Sought out women who build guitars, because you’re always looking for that representation, but I’m sure that someone asked, said to you where I, Oh, there’s, aren’t very many women who build guitars. I think that you and I could be like, well, there’s Meredith, there’s Megan.

[00:29:19] There’s Layla. There’s plenty of women who built guitars. So it’s just, did you, did you go through the kind of similar experience where you were. Looking for other women who did this thing that you wanted to do?

[00:29:35] Leila: Definitely. Like I kind of like sought out women and people of color, um, of which I’m both, um, that were building just because I was kind of.

[00:29:47] I guess, like, you know, curious about, or looking for some sort of like, I suppose, like in, you know, in a little, like you say, there, there are, there are people who are building and at the same time, like we very much, you know, make up a minority of, um, the guitar building world. So I most definitely like, you know, thought people out like over Instagram and this kind of thing.

[00:30:14] And. Super inspired by like, I mean, so many women builders, um, and I’m really honestly like I, so I, you were there Emily. I went to my first guitar show in Vancouver and I got to meet like three, um, women guitar builders that I was like sort of following and I’m really admire their work. Megan Wells and Meredith Kalama and, um, Nicole  and, um, I feel, and then there’s also like, you know, other like, like quite a number of super high, you know, high quality acoustic builders, um, who build Lindemann, Linda Manzer being one of them.

[00:30:58] Um, But, uh, I like, I, it sort of occurred to me. So I had like, quite a good experience at that at the guitar show. Um, I felt like my work was well received and all this kind of stuff, but it was really cool to sort of share a space with these other women, um, realizing like, like. Megan and Meredith in particular, just are these builders who I think have kind of like paved a way for somebody like me, because they produce super high quality instruments and have sort of like, and there’s women before them as well, who have sort of like, like done this work.

[00:31:36] And I think, I don’t know, like, I, it was really cool to sort of enter a space like that and not feel like I was being. You know, put under a microscope basically for,

[00:31:47] Emily: or that you were a token.

[00:31:50] Leila: Yes.

[00:31:53] Emily: Yeah. That’s a, that’s a thing that at guitar shows that has kind of been an experience I have had, um, uh, just so there aren’t a lot of women at them, but then if there are female performers, there’s maybe one.

[00:32:10] Is that, that would be like a lot for some of them, but it’s nice to see. And I don’t know if it’s because Meredith is one of the people in charge of, of the Vancouver guitar show. I mean, I send an email to them about, um, a workshop I went to and she’s the one who responded,

[00:32:27] Leila: right? Yeah. She’s like, she’s definitely a main organizer of the festival.

[00:32:32] Emily: Yeah. So it felt really cool to, I feel like you can tell when there are women. In charge. I think that just the, their presence adds a lot of diversity, complete different way of thinking about everything from the curriculum to the workshops, the performers, the exhibitors, the people who actually go. So the price point may be even

[00:32:54] Leila: totally.

[00:32:55] Yeah.

[00:32:57] Emily: It’s funny because women have been a part of. Guitar building since forever. And I mean, during world war II, all the men were at war. So Gibson had to make guitars. So they, we hired a bunch of women to make them in Kalamazoo, Michigan. And, uh, those Kalamazoo’s are. Still sought after they’re great instruments.

[00:33:17] I played one or two and unique and fender had women winding their pickups. And the idea was that women have smaller hands so that they can, they can wind everything a lot better. So we’ve, it’s, it’s the kind of thing where we’ve always been there, but just not front and center. My husband is a developer and he learned how to code at one of those.

[00:33:41] You know, coding schools programs, and they have this big wall on just right when you walk in. And it’s all of these statements, coders through history and especially in Seattle and they’re having some like happy hour or something looking at the wall and I’m looking through and I’m counting the women on the wall, right.

[00:34:02] There are women on there, but they’re like in the background they’re not named and a guy comes up to and he, he we’re talking and I’m like, yeah, the problem with this wall is that there are no. Women on it who were named. And he said, well, you know, they’re probably just, this is where a lot of women back then and asked him.

[00:34:16] I said, yeah, I mean, they were there. They were there probably in larger numbers than they are on this wall, just cause they’re not in the pictures. It doesn’t mean they weren’t

[00:34:26] Leila: there. History gets written by people in power and that’s probably the biggest flaw with history in general.

[00:34:35] Emily: I mean it, a Loveless literally invented,

[00:34:38] Leila: you know, it’s so, I mean, it’s so interesting, like, you know, I mean, one kind of magazine and, and online presence that I have so much respect for as she shreds and like there’s yeah.

[00:34:50] There’s this entire. Thing that they’ve created, like around again, like just sort of like giving voice, you know, currently, but also historically to so many women queer and non-binary folks who have like, Who have been super important like players, you know, but just completely erased. And I mean, it’s like, I think we all sort of have to question like, why, you know,

[00:35:21] Emily: why did it take so long, long for sister Rosetta, Tharpe who invented rock and roll it again to the rock and roll hall of fame?

[00:35:28] Like how, yeah. Have you ever heard the phrase cut and picking for guitar,

[00:35:33] Leila: uh, guitar? I know Andrew,

[00:35:36] Emily: have you heard that phrase? Cotton pickin?

[00:35:38] Leila: I don’t think I have.

[00:35:40] Emily: Oh man. Well, Elizabeth Cotton had a very unique style of playing and her style of kicking was referred to as cut and picking.

[00:35:47] Leila: Huh?

[00:35:49] Emily: Yeah. A woman was the first human as far as anybody knows who was, who had a video taken of her playing the steel guitar slide guitar.

[00:35:59] Like women have been as a forefront of guitar culture since forever.

[00:36:06] Leila: So like, I just like one question that sort of comes to mind, I suppose, is like, you know, we, we. We live in a, you know, quote unquote sort of like more progressive kind of society. We, we have access to the internet and sort of learning, you know, about all this stuff.

[00:36:25] But I think that, like you were saying, when you were talking about sort of going on a forum and saying, who are, you know, who are women, guitar builders and people saying like, I don’t know, um, I like, I, I just, I wonder about like culturally speaking, not sort of necessarily the people in this room, but like, um, but culturally speaking, like, like why aren’t we so comfortable with that erasure?

[00:36:50] And like, like what will make us uncomfortable with that erasure? So things actually kind of change in a more broad sentence. Like the people looking out for it, you know, are going to find she shreds are going to find like these builders who are building or, you know, Women

[00:37:06] Emily: who you’re gonna, you’re going to look for your community to be to for that part of belonging, but are you going to look to see like really dig to see what have I missed though?

[00:37:17] Like where are these gaps in my knowledge and experiences, and that’s ultimately what makes a person grow, not finding that safe space. I mean, you can say that women are always. In this uncomfortable zone. I think if you’re a woman and you get into music and you start playing guitar, you’re putting yourself in this uncomfortable zone.

[00:37:36] So then you have to retreat into find those, those, those communities, the people who share your experiences, but men, the culture as a whole is their comfortable zone. And you can tell some men are just so great with being like, Called out for saying something gross or bad. I mean, I’m glad that most of like the Facebook groups, and then there was a guy who made a hashtag me too joke or something where he just meant, like, I also don’t like pineapple on pizza or something.

[00:38:09] And I just spotted with a Jiff of like a cat saying Nope. And he immediately was like, you’re right. That was a bad joke. I’m sorry. But then there are the guys who will say that you saying the F word, it says bad as just rampant misogyny, which is wrong. Like, if that’s, if you’re, if you can equate, um, an adult woman saying the F word with just terrible misogynistic comments about women, then your priorities are.

[00:38:44] Leila: Well, I mean, speaking from a man’s perspective, um, I’m not used to having my comfort challenged. And even as someone who really cares about other folks and is something who tries to be very mindful of that and is constantly looking to improve and to expand my outlook on life and humanity and the human condition, all of that, all of that.

[00:39:08] You know, it kind of bothers me some on a personal level, mate, my jerk reaction is like, excuse me, what did you just say about me? Or like, you’re trying to take what from me, this is mine. And like, that’s just kind of my gut reaction that why that is. I don’t know, but I know that it’s kind of what my. Gut jumps to immediately with this kind of stuff.

[00:39:27] Emily: I mean, I think white women can get into that sort of protective knee jerk sort of reaction. When, um, you know, you talk about the idea of white feminism and a feminism that isn’t inclusive to women of color. I mean, you hear that that’s that fact all the time that whether it makes 75% of what a man makes, but women of color make a lot less black women make maybe 65% Latino women.

[00:39:53] Make like 50%.

[00:39:55] Leila: Yeah.

[00:39:55] Emily: Like that’s like, it’s worse than that. Like it’s bad. And I think that as a white woman, if you’re not thinking about that, yeah. You have a lot of disadvantages. I have a lot of, you know, I’ve experienced a lot of sexism, but I haven’t experienced sexism and racism and they are both just atrocious and a lot of women have to experience both and it’s sucks.

[00:40:21] So sometimes white women get super defensive when like a black woman calls them out and you know what? Just listen, take feedback. Not personally, but as a chance to be introspective. And you know, maybe that that gut reaction is to say, well, screw you. Like, what do you know about me? I’m a good person. But if somebody says something that like that to me, even if that’s my first reaction, I got to bottle it up.

[00:40:51] I got a process. I got to think about what I did to hurt somebody. Because if I hurt somebody, like I don’t get to say, no, I didn’t hurt you. Totally. That’s just not how it works.

[00:41:02] Leila: I mean, yeah, there’s a term for it. Right. Is, is a white fragility and like there’s, I mean, yeah. I can’t even sort of say start on that, but there’s so many amazing articles online, all about it, but, uh, but yeah, no, I hear what you’re I hear what you’re saying, Emily and I, I, I.

[00:41:21] Agree that it is about like, sort of, you know, not necessarily denying that first response of defensiveness, but like recognizing that it is a first response and not like the only response or not like the ultimate response. And then sort of like taking time to like process and learn and like figure out your feelings.

[00:41:42] Not with that person. That’s kind of like called you in. But, um, but

[00:41:47] Emily: not that person’s job to then answer it.

[00:41:49] Leila: Yeah.

[00:41:53] Emily: I’m sorry. I can’t, I sell enough emotional labor. Like I have like guys message me all the time. Who have they really do? Like. Pedal builders messaged me. Sometimes guitar builders, message me.

[00:42:06] Sometimes people who run gear groups messaged me. And sometimes they’ll ask about like, Oh, how can we make this better for women? Or what’s your perspective as a woman? I’m like, I get it. That’s coming from the right place. I’m going to always answer their questions as long as they’re sincere, but like, I can see how that would get so exhausting.

[00:42:24] So on that note, uh, this one’s run a little bit long. So we’re probably going to get going, but Layla, thanks so much for being a part of a part of our

[00:42:35] Leila: podcast. Well, my pleasure. Thank you for having me. Alright, thank you so much.

[00:42:41] Emily: I really appreciate it. Thanks everybody who listened and we’ll see you all.

[00:42:44] Leila: Indeed. See you next time.

[00:43:13] Emily: Hey there. It’s Emily from the get offset podcast. Thank you so much as always for listening to this week’s episode with Layla city of tuna tone instruments, um, Layla is just such an incredible guitar builder. I feel so lucky to call her a friend and to have. Then I’m able to, to try out her, her newest instrument, which she’s been calling the tiny tuna at the Vancouver guitar festival earlier in 2018.

[00:43:47] Um, uh, like we usually do for episodes where we have guests hosts, please, in addition to liking get offset. On the social media channels, please go and follow Layla, at least on Instagram. She not only posts pictures of her beautiful instruments. She posts videos of her cat tuna, and she does these really cool sort of, um, Videos of her building and they just kind of go on a loop and they’re really hypnotic.

[00:44:23] And there are a few that I’ve watched maybe 10 times before I realized that I’m just watching a ten second loop over and over. So if that’s something that you’re into, she does that. It’s pretty great. Um, if you need more Layla and I get that, we have a bonus episode on the way that is just Layla and I.

[00:44:45] Talking. And, uh, if you liked this, I think you’ll like that if you didn’t like this, you should still listen to it. Um, because I mean, I think it was a fun, fun conversation to have, and I hope you agree. Um, please review the podcast, please subscribe. Um, please leave us feedback on what we’re doing to one friend in the guitar community about us.

[00:45:18] Um, we very much appreciate you taking time to listen to us Yammer about guitar stuff. We have a lot of fun doing it, and we hope you have fun listening. So until next time, thank you for listening and thanks for understanding. Bye.