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You ain't garage if you ain't got fuzz
Fuzz is the essential element of garage rock. Fact. There are thousands of tracks we could use to demonstrate sick '60s fuzz. The Jack’s gloriously overwrought Gloomy Flower gives us another opportunity to dig out some wicked Japanese garage. The solo is a fuzzed-up feast.
There’s a fuzz pedal review round up on this site, but if you want this writer’s opinion the best fuzz pedal out there is the Retroman Lola made by Joe Wolf of Wisconsin, US. For $175 (plus shipping) you get The Yardbirds, Count Five and The Cramps in a box.
‘Freakbeat’ was a heavier sounding brand of garage that evolved in the UK of the mid-1960s. The Renegade’s 1966 blast through 13 Women is a great example of this heavier sound. The Creation’s Painter Man is another. Watch Eddie Phillips play his guitar with a violin bow. He did it before Jimmy Page!
