What's Your Local? with Jay Burstein

After earning a music degree from a small arts school in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I backpacked South America. My acoustic guitar rapidly became my bridge to friending locals and sharing cultures. That instrument began to fall apart as I journeyed through glaciers, beaches, jungle, desert and mountains. I remember thinking, they can put a man on the moon but can’t make a guitar suited for travel. The seed was planted. Upon returning to Santa Fe, I enjoyed the life of a gigging musician and worked for the legendary guitar shop, The Candyman, where I honed my instrument repair skills.

I returned to my hometown of Randolph in 2003 with my wife, knowing that Vermont is the best place to raise a family. I spent the next 10 years as a string repair technician for Ellis Music of Bethel. I then became head luthier for a company that built carbon fiber guitars. This is where I learned the art of composites. However, I always believed there must be an environmentally friendly way to build composite instruments that play and sound great but are also rugged enough for adventure and travel. In 2015, I began to experiment with building guitars and ukuleles from Vermont’s newly legal crop, hemp. BugOut Guitars had sprouted.

For my family, living local means eating, heating, educating and enjoying. We get raw milk from the farm up the road, our eggs and produce come from friends. We are eager to pay it forward when our backyard ducks start laying. My wife, who is from New Mexico, harvests produce at Pebble Brook Farms in the morning. She then serves that bounty at the Black Krim Tavern that same evening. Rather than giving our heating budget to big oil, we buy firewood from local people. Homeschooling our son connects us with local families and events. As for leisure time, we enjoy Vermont’s nature—hiking, biking, boating and skiing.

I handcraft steadfast, quality “adventure” guitars and ukuleles for people to take with them as they play in nature and explore the world. My instruments have whitewater-rafted the Grand Canyon and summited Mount Denali, North America’s highest peak. As my creation blossoms, my dream is to work in a solar-powered shop employing local folks who proudly build instruments out of Vermont-grown and -processed hemp.

Music allowed me to connect with people and cultures as I traveled the world. Now I build instruments to help others do the same.

The Candyman
Ellis Music
BugOut Guitars | @bugoutguitars
Pebble Brook Farms
Black Krim Tavern | @blackkrimtavern