Once In A Lifetime

Talking Heads

"We chose this mainly for the imagery of the lyrics, for David Byrne's voice as he seems to sing against the track, and for the whole rhythmic part which is dead interesting. It's a combination of many interesting things which all fit so well together." (All.)

A Day In The Life

The Beatles

"An epic — and the best ending ever. There's also the variety of McCartney singing in the middle, all bouncy and quite jolly, and then Lennon, real doom-ridden stuff. Sums it up. Course, McCartney has redeemed himself lately by getting busted..." (All.)

Another Girl Another Planet

The Only Ones

"John Perry's guitar work is indeed exceptional, the solo has such intricacy, and yet it's quite melodic too. And it was never really a hit." (John Rowley.)

Sister Rae

Velvet Underground

"There are others we could have chosen, but this happens to be the longest track and it seemed best to have that." (Lou Barlow.)

10.15 On A Saturday Night

The Cure

"How can we explain this in a pithy sentence? It was the first good thing after loads of dross. I remember that first Cure LP being the first interesting thing, there wasn't much before that. It made us sit up and think — we even worked some of the songs out." (Jerry Kidd.)

Any track from

"Soweto" compilation

"This is an African sampler, put together on Rough Trade — some bloke went around studios in the south of Africa and listened to their tapes and chose eight or 10 tracks for this LP. The range is good, but the guitar work in particular is interesting. It's not like Sunny Adi or the other Nigerian stuff you hear quite a bit now — there's squeeze boxes and big vocal choruses." (Hallam Lewis.)

44 Blues

Howlin' Wolf

"Plus 10. This is not a 12-bar—essential listening. Wolf is responsible for so many of the riffs you hear every day in pop music. Like the Smiths' new single — no, don't print that." (All.)

My Way

Sid Vicious

"I like the changes to the words in this version, and the orchestration at the end is just superb. The video for this is one of the funniest I've ever seen. Yes, brilliant." (Matt Higgins.)

Red Guitars are Jeremy Kidd, Hailam Lewis, John Rowley, Matt Higgins, and Lou Barlow, and they're based in Hull. Two previous singles on their own Selfdrive label, "Good Technology" and "Fact", will be followed shortly by a third, probably "Marimba Jive", which the band were sorting out at the time the List Department swooped.

They had just done a Whistle Test too: they were "a bit pissed off because it was quite rushed and the sound wasn't too good, but apparently it looked OK on TV". Part of a tour with the Smiths got underway in early February, and about the time you read this a new 12in ("a semi-remix") version of "Good Technology" will appear, with a new track "Paris France" included.

There was some talk of negotiations with what was described as a "semi-major" record company, so the third single might not end up on Selfdrive. But their indie experiences have led to praise for distributors Cartel and Red Rhino — "we're very happy with them, they've been great" — and a more reserved comment on promotion: "We've had no help in that area."

Having rung up the group initially to get their feelings on their "Fender Stratocasters" for elsewhere in this month's bumper number, we discovered that they do in fact play Tokais, because they can't afford Strats. "We haven't got any money," explains Matt. "To take it further we need money." Enter the semi-major? Careful, now.