The P-90

The Grover Exchange. My band was already onstage, and I was racing up the stairs of the Grover Exchange through the crowd when a young guy right behind me says “Hey what kind of pickups you got on that thing?” I only had time to utter one word “Soapbar”. That said volumes, even if he didn’t know what a soapbar was, any music store guy will tell him it’s a Gibson P-90, the noisiest and most aggressive pick-up in the world. They’ve tried to recreate that sound – they even have one that looks the same but quieter (the P-100) but it doesn’t do it for me. I’ve started a search for the perfect pick-up – and I know what I want; I want a whisper quiet soapbar that fits in my Strat without cutting holes in it’s vintage pickguard.