Riders On The Storm

A new name on the Brit-making scene teams up with one of the most innovative players of his generation, Nick McCabe. What could they possibly cook up?

- Dave Burrluck

Walking around this year’s NAMM show, this writer was dismayed to see an awful number of great guitars all based on four or so classic designs. Everywhere we looked we saw ‘Strats’, ‘Teles’, ‘Les Pauls’, ‘ES-335s’ or ‘330s’ and many, many ‘new’ designs were more often than not based on old ones. Whatever happened to innovation when it comes to our instrument?

It’s a timely refresher, then, that Cumbria based maker Graham Skimming got in touch and shipped us his Paradox model – originally offered as a limited-run ‘Old Nick’ model conceived for, and with, ex-Verve guitarist, Nick McCabe. “A shared interest turned out to be the ‘why’ of bass bodies not being commonly adopted for regular guitar designs,” says Nick. “John Squire’s Jazz Bass cropped up during talks, and we got on to Rickenbacker, offsets: what mileage was there for builders in taking traditional shapes the extra mile?”

Our standard Paradox Custom closely follows Nick’s original spec and is likewise based on the idea of, says Graham, “a retro, offset guitar, which instead of feeling cheap, unstable, unbalanced and poorly intonated – as many of them are – is built to the highest specs using the best parts, materials and construction techniques that are usually reserved for higher-end instruments. Particular attention has also been paid to feel and ergonomics.