Walking to work this morning with my iPod shuffle—constant surprises! you never know what's next!—this Kinks cover by The Briefs popped up:

The song was fun and all, but little did I know how much thought, physics, and electrical engineering went into the sound of those guitars. From the band's Wikipedia page:

The reasoning for the heavy use of "Junior" Gibson guitars is mainly due to three key factors, one being the vintage "dogear" P-90 pickup. The P-90 forms an interesting combination of single coil "twang" and humbucker "beef", producing a sound that cannot easily be categorized. The mid-frequencies are usually very, very strong and bass is underemphasized. When played with modest gain and high volume, the pickup distorts itself due to the distance between the strings (they are surface mounted) as well as the pickup's overall output. In a sense, the P90 is a super-beefed up single coil. Another key factor is the wrap-around bridge. While they are not original (they replaced the original bridges with new wrap-arounds that had two adjustable saddles), the bridges create a great deal of tone characteristic as well as greater sustain. The key element to these guitars are their designs.

Both include heavy fret access (The SG and Double Cut are almost identical in that nearly every fret can be accessed, unlike Gibson's traditional Single Cut Les Paul), light bodies, a slab of mahogany (Gibson's vintage guitars used much more prestigious pieces of wood), and, most importantly, they have little distractions in the way of playing so Dan and Steve can slam away at notes without flicking a tone switch out of socket or injuring themselves on a sharp bridge saddle.

I'll take your word for it, Wikipedia.