I had the pleasure of hanging out with Biddeford-born photographer and encyclopedia Cy Cyr for a spell the other day. We talked about Biddeford (Past and Present), Music, Photography, food, and Custom Job Musical instruments for his York County-centered Brick and Tides project. A growing collection of feature articles on local arts, minds, and businesses. It’s a treat to read through and Cy is a great guy with tons of knowledge not only of his craft, but of local history and present going’s-on. Thanks so much, Cy. Pleasure to meet you!
Gavin John Sheehan (D.B.A. Custom Job) Is a Musician, Composer, Luthier, Builder, and Fabricator of 35 years. Before knowing what a luthier was, gavin took care of all his own instrument repair and customization. By the time he had his first job in finishing at a local funiture store, he’d been thinking about building his own instruments from scratch. A lot of years of repairing and working jobs, mostly related to carpentry, he picked up skills in furniture design, building, finishing and woodworking in general. Over time, as he’d encountered more complex instrument repairs, a lot of the work he’d done in the trades lent well to his work with musical instruments. After a 10 year spell living in Montreal, QC and playing all types of music, traditional and nontraditional western, eastern and experimental work, he began to fall out of love with the instruments he was playing (though he now misses a heafty amount of them). Around that time, he bought his first table saw for 150 bucks from a humidor maker which came with an almost embarassing amount of beautiful and highly figured woods. He carried at least 6 pieces of highly figured tiger maple and other odds and ends around with him for the following 15 years. Over that 15 years, he’d been doing work on other people’s instruments and building/restoring his own drumset, a combination 1948 Gretch Broadkaster he picked up in a junk shop and several other custom drums he built to go with it. He finally began construction of two Guitars (Earth I and Earth II) which would be the only electric guitars he’d allow himself to “Buy” after close to 5 years without a dependable solid body guitar. Gavin Decided to go into business in 2017, opening his first shop as Custom Job in Tolland, CT. He’s since moved to Biddeford, ME. where Custom Job continues to offer setups, repairs, modifications, and custom builds of musical instruments.
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