Talk:They'll Need A Crane

It sounds to me like Flans is singing harmony. Can anyone comfirm this? - apfelbitsliam

Yeah, he definitely is singing in the background on the chorus. -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 21:05, 11 Mar 2006 (CST)

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Who are the old men in the music video?

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The old Q and A says...

Who were the old guys in your "They'll Need A Crane" video?

JL: They are professional old guys. The drummer worked for Frank Sinatra in the 50s. The bass player has retired from music and currently writes crosswords for the Daily News, and the keyboard guy is an actor.

http://www.tmbg.com/qaIndex.html

-Ecks

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So are we documenting the filming locations of any of the videos on TMBW? Just thought seeing as its not hard to tell where they're all filmed: Bethesda Fountain, Crane; N 8th St, Williamsburg, Puppethead; Flushing Meadows, Dont Lets Start; etc --AnklePants 08:40, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

If you know where they were filmed, then sure, it would be good to put the info on their song pages.

Rarely Live

Does anybody know why They never seem to play this song live? Of all the concerts I've been to, They played it once- way back in 2000- and as far as I can tell haven't busted it out since then! I don't get it, this has to be one of their most popular songs, not to mention one of their coolest. Same goes for "Hotel Detective", or "Kiss Me Son of God", which I have also never seen/heard live.

I mean, don't you think most people would rather hear these songs than "John Lee Supertaster" for the ten billionth time?

To say the least... YES. But I can think of at least 25 songs I would have rather heard live than 'Memo to Human Resources', which they played at all three shows I went to last week.

To be fair, yes, I'm sure They'll Need a Crane would rock the house, especially if they played it in this tour. A nice throw back. But to be equally fair, TMBG puts loads of effort into every show everywhere. No venue isn't worth the best they can do, to them. I'd really hesitate to criticize them on the shows. Besides, have you ever heard "John Lee Supertaster" live? It's solid rock. A winner every time. --Luke 14:57, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

You are correct Luke, TMBG gives you very little to complain about at any show (especially if you go to three in one week like the guy above, you should expect to hear some repeats). But they do seem to favor some of their throwaway material in concert at times, for example "Robot Parade" which was clearly written in about 5 minutes and has been played quite often in recent years, whereas the "hits" (so to speak) are much more rare.

Don't get me wrong, every song they play is done to perfection. I guess I'm just one of those overzealous fans who always wants MORE! --Oddjob 16:06, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

It could be because of emotions attached to Crane, much like I've Got A Match (another sad relationship song written by Linnell at the same time, and not played live because of emotional reasons). -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 18:50, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm going with CapitalQ on this one. I'm betting it doesn't get played live much because it's simply too personal for Linnell. This isn't uncommon for artists. For example, I know there was a period where Elvis Costello couldn't perform "Alison" live because it just brought up too many painful memories. --The Vanishing Dot 12:11, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong, I was fully prepared to hear repeats of the songs from The Else (sell the new record), and Birdhouse In Your Soul (being their biggest hit). But like I said, why Memo To Human Resources, Mammal, and Meet James Ensor? Looking at the 20 highest-rated songs here, they only played 5 of them in SoCal last week. Perspixx 04:09, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

You got to see Mammal live? Jeez, what the hell are you complaining about? The band plays what they want to play that night. I'd love to see Mammal live! -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 06:13, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

And I loved seeing it live... the first night. You got to see Purple Toupee and They Got Lost live; that would've been cool. Perspixx 07:05, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Boom. It's a regular on the nanobots tour. Awesome! --Nascarbean 97 11:03, 25 March 2013 (EDT)

Trivia that isn't really trivia

Um, do we really need "this could be about a divorce" in trivia/info? I think that's...um, not exactly a groundbreaking interpretation...--Self Called Nowhere 00:11, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Keyboard

Does anyone know what the name of the keyboard used in the video for this song? If it helps, it has one half of the keyboard normal, but on the other the key colours are switched: sharp and flat notes are white, and normal notes are black.

Well, it's some type of transistor organ... the internet tells me there are a bunch that have inverted key colors. I found this fairly quickly - it's not the same, but it's similar, it's a Farfisa Compact: [1]. The organ might be in that family, there are endless variations of color and keyboard range and buttons according to this handy internet page. I would be more help if you wanted to know the mic they put Linnell on! -j2

Aren't harpsichords like that? The coloring, I mean. I figured it was half harpsichord, or something, but that doesn't really seem practical, now that I think about it. -Apollo. 00:08, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Oh hey, I didn't know that! The only harpsichord I've seen was at a music school years ago, and it was all green (and I was all young). That would be incredible, though, like a clavichord with a magical interior. -j2

I've never actually seen a real harpsichord, I think my knowledge of them is relevant to the film Amadeus. But that is a good way of describing it, yes. :) -Apollo. 00:21, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I know that I'm six years late to this, but I recognize that organ. It's a Fender Contempo combo organ. They were produced in the late 60s but they didn't sell well because the combo organ market was dying at the time of its release. I hope this helps even though it's been six years. --Supernintendo64 (talk) 04:21, 16 April 2016 (EDT)

Identifying the music video keyboard actor

Thanks to this press release about Crane recently posted to TMBG's Tumblr, we finally have names for everyone in the 3-piece backing band in the music video. TMBW already knew about Johnny Blowers, and through some searching I was able to find Ernie Furtado (the PR misspelled both Johnny and Ernie's surnames). I'm not turning up anything for the keyboardist, though - "character actor Fred Barby" - even trying variations of his first and last name. Would be cool if someone else has better luck, though! -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪