the Wishlist
Dream gear to beg, borrow and steal for...
In a previous life Neil Ivison was a guitarist and guitar tech for more than 20 years – the last band he’d worked with was The 1975 – but with a young family he came off the road in 2018. “After wondering what I was going to do,” he tells us today, “I set up in the garage and started doing a few guitar repairs. Then I thought I’d have a go at making a guitar. Word spread and it snowballed from there: 18 months later I realised I had a business.”
Neil is now based just outside of Worcester, and his designs are both single-cuts: the Hurricane (here in Junior Burst), sort of rolling up a 50s Les Paul Special with some ’Burst style; and the Dakota, introduced at the start of 2021, ploughing a more Firebird-like style.
If you like your vintage pieces, not least Gibsons, you’ll certainly be at home here. From the moment you pull this one out of its Hiscox case you’re transported back to a different time. Yet while this build might sweat the details, it’s no copy – that lowered and softened treble horn changes the aesthetic, and the headstock is functional, not fancy. The body is solid one-piece African mahogany, while the top is lightly figured Eastern maple that’s lightly carved. The neck is ‘old growth’ mahogany, the rosewood fingerboard is uncannily close to our 1957 Les Paul Junior reference, and the back carve slightly fuller in the hand. One nod to modernism is a light chamfering on the body by the neck heel, just slightly reducing the bulk.
The finishing is superb. Neil uses a “100 per cent nitrocellulose that’s lightly aged, vintage formulated and non-plasticised”. The back, sides and edges of the sunburst are a really accurate-looking, dark but lightly translucent brown with a beautiful light-amber centre to the front.
Using Sunbear pickups, the Hurricane doesn’t disappoint – from the smooth but defined voice of the neck soapbar to the subtle grunt of the bridge ’bucker, and, as set, the mix is deliciously full and harmonically rich. But use the volume and tone and you’ll uncover one reason why 50s Gibsons are so revered: the controls really clean up and are subtly interactive, ideal for older-style blues at the bridge, while the neck P-90 seems equally at home with jazzier voicings, vocal and smooth in equal measure. It’s great craft and really feels and sounds like a well-cared for piece that’s a lot older than it actually is.
1
