Toronto indie-pop duo Ducks Ltd. are students of the jangle. The same is true of New Jersey's Real Estate. In either band's music, you can hear echoes of many decades of shimmery, spangly cult-beloved underground music. Today, Ducks Ltd. and Real Estate frontman Martin Courtney get together to cover an underappreciated jangle-gem: the late Go-Betweens member Grant McLellan's 1991 song "Easy Come, Easy Go."
Ducks Ltd.'s album Harm's Way came out in 2024. Since then, they've released a couple of tracks with Ratboys' Julia Steiner and Moontype's Margaret McCarthy, and they've covered Camera Obscura's "Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken" with Lunar Vacation's Gep Repasky. In a few days, Ducks Ltd. will head out on tour with Yumi Zouma. Today, they team up with Martin Courtney for a lovely cover of "Easy Come, Easy Go," from Grant McLennan's 1991 solo debut Watershed. Here's what Ducks Ltd. singer/guitarist Tom McGreevy says about it:
We're on the record as being big Go-Betweens fans, and this song is from my favorite Go-Between Grant McLennan's first solo record from right after the band broke up. I think it's one of his best songs. It uses figurative language in a way that feels plain spoken and direct, and it incorporates contemporary imagery in a way that feels timeless. If it'd had been on a Go-Betweens album, it would have been one of their classics.
This was our first time working with Martin, and it was really fun! We went to his extremely haunted studio in Beacon, NY on a day off on tour and did the whole track in one day. It was super interesting to work with someone who has been making a similar kind of music to us for a long time. Our overall processes and instincts were super similar, but he had some insights and ideas we would never have arrived at on our own.
Below, check out the Ducks Ltd./Martin Courtney version of "Easy Come, Easy Go," the original Grant McLennan version, and Ducks Ltd.'s upcoming tour dates.
TOUR DATES:
4/30 - Washington, DC @ Black Cat *
5/01 - Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Church *
5/02 - Brooklyn, NY @ Warsaw *
5/04 - Cambridge, MA @ The Sinclair *
5/06 - Toronto, ON @ Lee's Palace *
5/08 - Chicago, IL @ Outset *
5/12 - Vancouver, BC @ The Pearl *
5/13 - Seattle, WA @ Neumos *
5/14 - Portland, OR @ Aladdin Theater *
5/16 - San Francisco, CA @ The Independent *
5/19 - Los Angeles, CA @ Pacific Electric *
5/20 - San Diego, CA @ Belly Up Tavern *
* with Yumi Zouma
The "Easy Come, Easy Go" cover is out now on Carpark.
