Al Beardsell has been playing, repairing, and generally thinking about guitars for most of the past 25-30 years. The last 15 years have seen him building them professionally for genius musicians luminous and obscure alike, from Lou Reed of the Velvet Underground, to avant-garde musician and filmmaker Henry Kaiser, from local dudes the Weakerthans, to Quebecois noise/folk fusionist Rene Lussier. His work has recently been featured in The Fretboard Journal and Acoustic Guitar Magazine. He lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba, with his family, and likes to cook. He works amid a swirling miasma of wood, dust, shavings, smells and tools, in a small, chaotic, converted shop…called the Beardsell Guitar Studio.