The Black Keys Fan Lounge Forum

it makes me sad that The Black Keys used to be synonymous with raunchy guitar fuzz. USED TO.

from The Big Come Up through Thickfreakness and Rubber Factory, to Magic Potion, and even a little of Attack and Release... they were known for bringing the fuzzy guitar. all different types of fuzztones.

I think we can all agree that the fuzz has taken a backseat. No?

Apparently KOL turned down an offer from Glee for a whole KOL-theme episode. I'd like to think if TBK ever got a similar offer, they'd take it, only to blast everyone with a cranked thickfreakness.

Yeah, every band goes through it's phases. I was pretty bummed when Rush (a pretty hardcore band in the 70's) started going synth-heavy in the mid 80's. Maybe not the best example...

jmjohnson - you're right on the money brother. same old thing on crystal ballroom dvd is insanely fuzzy. love that shit. LOVE it. you should check out this old white stripes dvd called "under blackpool lights" - it has some insane fuzz on it too. i'm not much of a white stripes guy but the fuzztones on that dvd are out of this world.

After Blakroc(obvisouly a bass/rythym-driven album), Dan started focusing on the bass for building the song's structure in Brothers. Plus at the time Pat had just finished playing bass with Drummer. So...I think that led to less guitar influences. Although they will never be completely without some awesome licks and riffs.
Just hope the next album combines the same amazing colours and arrangements as Brothers, and also brings back some foundation-shaking Fuzzy guitar riffs.

All bands change their sound. It would be great if they could keep that vintage fuzz sound forever but as history has shown, most bands take on a different sound. I am a huge fan of Jimmy Pages guitar tone from the first two Zeppelin albums. He stopped using the Tonebender but his sound was still awesome on the following albums.

I like the sound of Brothers but still love to crank up some of the older fuzz sounds from their previous recordings.

I love the first Zeppelin Albums too, though I think that early tone he was getting had little to do with the tone bender and more from the fact he was using a telecaster. When he switched to the Les Paul his tone changed significantly. I'm pretty sure the tone bender still made appearances on later albums, but the tele was retired for the most part except for a rare few.

I'm hoping there will be some more fuzz on the next record too. I've been listening to Thickfreakness lately and am really missing the balls-out fuzz tones. I Got Mine and She's Long Gone are both really kick ass as far as the newer albums go, but I really want there to be more where that came from.

Same Old Thing is killer on Crystal Ballroom, one of my favorites to hear live.