The new signature model from Adam Phillips features an Evertune bridge, Gotoh locking tuners, and VHC/Fire Ice humbuckers.
Featurin the Evertune bridge and paired with Gotoh locking tuners and a Graphtech nut for added consistency. The alder body is coated with an elegant white gloss finish and black binding for a timeless contrast. The bolt-on roasted maple neck features 24 medium jumbo stainless steel frets, providing longevity and durability. The neck also employs a Vola Modern C profile with a compounding thickness to further comfortability.
From an electronics standpoint, the guitar is tonally driven by a VHC humbucker in the neck and a Fire Icehumbucker in the bridge, both designed in-house. Additional control is introduced by a volume knob, apush-pull pot to incorporate a coil tap, and a three-way switch to tie in different combinations of the twopickups. The installation of a kill switch further expands its creative potential. All in all, the Supernova is designed for efficiency, power, and musical exploration.
- Country of Origin: Handmade in Japan
- Construction: Bolt-on neck with V3 heel
- Body: Alder
- Fingerboard: Ebony
- Neck: Roasted Maple, Vola Modern C neck shape, 1F 20mm/ 12F 21mm
- Nut: 42mm * 3.4T Graphtech TusQ
- Frets: 24 Stainless-Steel Jumbo/ 25.5” Scale
- Inlay: MOP offset dots with Atom logo
- Radius: 12" Radius
- Pickups: Vola VHC Humbucker (N), Vola Fire Ice Humbucker (B)
- Electronics:1Volume (push/ pull coil tap), 3way toggle switch with Kill Switch
- Bridge: Evertune F bridge
- Tuners: Gotoh Locking tuners
- Strings: D'Addario XTE0942 9-42
- Case: Vola Custom Series Gig Bag (included)
The Vola OZ Supernova is the culmination of Vola’s dedication to designing top-quality instruments for demanding players, without sacrificing the beauty that invites a closer look. Visit their website or your local Vola dealer for a closer look at the OZ Supernova..The Vola OZ Supernova has a street price of$1,549 USD. Vola Guitars now sells direct!
For more information, please visit volaguitars.com.
Introducing the BRAND NEW - Vola OZ 24 AP Supernova
The Semisonic frontman and multi-Grammy-winning cowriter joins this episode to talk creative processes and write an alt-country hit.
If you’ve been in any bar past last call, you’ve heard Dan Wilson’s work. “Closing Time” launched his band Semisonic into the international pop-culture stratosphere in 1998, and since then, he’s become an A-list cowriter with some of music’s biggest names—including, perhaps, the biggest: Taylor Swift. The 62-year-old Minnesota native cowrote the Chicks’ Grammy-winning anthem “Not Ready to Make Nice,” Adele’s tear-jerker “Someone Like You,” and Chris Stapleton’s “White Horse,” which took home the 2024 Grammy for best country song. Wilson insists that he rebels against any “role” foisted upon him in the studio—he’s less “writer’s block killer” and more “creative therapist,” digging for truth and emotion.
Wilson’s creative craft has brought us some of this century’s most ubiquitous and popular songs, and on this episode of Before Your Very Ears, he applies it with hosts Sean Watkins and Peter Harper to write an alt-country tune in G major. The central idea? You’re not your feelings, and sometimes it’s only through the grace of those closest to us that we can pare down an overreaction: “It’s a long-term solution to a short-term problem/When you’re looking for answers, that’s when everybody’s got one,” the main hook calls.
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This guitar is the same model that belonged to Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks. Of course, the one that our columnist owns still has its whole body intact.
As the wind blows, so do my interests, and recently, I found myself taking a deep dive into the music of the Buzzcocks. That group was one of the early, legendary English punk bands. I was going through all the band’s recordings but I was really digging the group’s first EP from 1977, Spiral Scratch. That first record just has an incredibly raw guitar tone that has a familiar feel.
As I suspected, good ol’ Pete Shelley, their lead singer and guitarist, was playing a Teisco-made guitar in his early days! People, I feel like my ears are tuned to the Teisco frequency. Which is sort of interesting, because I have no real musical ability or ear to speak of!
After doing a bit of research, I found out that Pete’s guitar was a Teisco MJ-1, which was branded as “Starway” in his part of the world. His was a one-pickup model without the tremolo, but these guitars were sold in one- and two-pickup configurations and with or without tremolo. Here in the U.S., these same guitars wore all sorts of headstock brand names like Lafayette and St. George.
In 1963, the electric-guitar boom was starting to gain momentum, and these Teisco guitars were among the first mass-produced electrics to ship out of Japan, and therefore some of the first to satisfy the needs of the public. The MJ guitars were sold in large numbers and you can find them pretty easily on the used market. Brian Eno was also known to use the Teisco MJ-2 as a studio guitar!
The two-pickup model here was known as the MJ-2. (In the States, MJ-2s carried the ET-200 name.) Produced until around 1965, these guitars have that familiar Matsumoto City-area build technique with surface-mounted pickups and a half pickguard that hides all the electronics. It’s an efficient design that many manufacturers used for years in the early 1960s. Also, the MJ guitars went through a couple of variations, including changes to the pickups and headstock shape.
“Personally, I love the deep V shape, but it can be a bit much to the modern player.”
In the 1964 Teisco catalog, the MJ-2, or ET-200, retailed for $90. You could also buy an E-200, which was the same guitar, sans tremolo. Whatever configuration you choose, these early Teisco guitars’ incredible surface-mount pickups just grind! If you listen to the Spiral Scratch EP you can hear that edgy tone. The pickups featured here on my St. George and on Pete’s Starway are really the ones to own. The makers in Japan were still learning the craft in the early days, and there are many examples of happy accidents that led to guitars sounding like buzzsaws! These Teisco pickups are exhibit A.
The standard MJ-2 has two volume and tone knobs and two pickup-selector rocker switches. The guitar is rather light in the hands, but some are a little neck-heavy because of the large V-shape of early necks. Personally, I love the deep V shape, but it can be a bit much to the modern player. The headstock of this early version is also awesome, all gonzo and exaggerated.
Pete used his Starway from 1973 to 1977, and the guitar was even specified among the credits of Spiral Scratch! Interestingly, Pete had wired his pickup straight to the jack to avoid the knobs, but more famously, he accidentally broke his guitar in half so that the entire top half of the body was gone! But he kept on playing the guitar for many concerts afterwards because he enjoyed how much lighter it became. Talk about a legendary guitar!