The brightness can be tamed just by rolling off the tone control. If I'm playing a passive-pickup Tele (my #1 Tele has EMGs and behaves differently), I'll usual

The brightness can be tamed just by rolling off the tone control. If I'm playing a passive-pickup Tele (my #1 Tele has EMGs and behaves differently), I'll usually roll both the tone and volume knobs off at least a bit, to tame it. It's very easy for guitarists to just turn the knobs up all the way and leave them there, but the Tele controls are a whole new world of magic. Another solution is to use a hotter bridge pickup (which will be necessarily darker), and replace the neck pickup with, heck, almost anything else.