True to my personality and music taste, I’m going to do a complete 180 from the dance-o-rama of yesterday’s Daily Tune and ease us a little closer to the weekend by introducing you to one of my favorite new indie rock bands, Yellowbirds and their single The Rest Of My Life.

To my close friends I’m probably known as the guy on the pulse of what’s hip and cool in music. However, to other writers and fellow music geeks, I’m probably about 10 months late in discovering the latest bands. So, while I’m sure Yellowbirds will not be new to anyone who knows a thing or two about the indie rock scene, they’re new to me and one of my favorite discoveries of the last few months.

Unlike most of my fellow gays and lezbatrons, I didn’t grow up dressing like Madonna or one of the Jacksons. Instead, my musical upbringing was firmly entrenched in the music of the 40s, 50s, and 60s. And sandwiched into that era of groundbreaking artistry in the 1950s, is where you’ll find some of my favorite singers such as Ricky Nelson, The Everly Brothers, and Roy Orbison; all reasons why I love Yellowbirds.

Yellowbirds is the brainchild of Houston-born, New York City-based, singer-songwriter Sam Cohen and his debut album, The Color, pulls from the music of that era of the 1950s and, to my ear, throws a little bit of 60s French flare in there as well for good measure. The album is at times psychedelic, always melodic, and (to steal a word from my mother) dreamy.

The first single (to my behind-the-times knowledge) is for the lead track off the album, The Rest Of My Life. The video for the song is pretty visually orgasmic and the album deserves your money. So buy it, bitches!

http://www.yellowbirdsmusic.com/

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Yellowbirds/154845741203734

http://www.myspace.com/yellowbirds

http://www.youtube.com/yellowbirdsmusic#p/a/u/1/QjRrry_kBxU

This week Fred Hystere devotes this week’s Daily Classics to 4 of his favorite pop divas and today he rounds out the week with one of his idols, Tina Turner.

Man, I would be hard pressed to find an artist that I admire more as a person than Tina Turner. With all of the adversity she’s faced in her life, the abuse and more, she’s remained a pillar of elegance in a world of smut. She’s never lost her integrity and has always been one of the few performers out there with a natural ability to breath Rock-n-Roll, R&B, and Soul within seconds of one another.

To me, Rock-n-Roll is a place where talent, sex, debauchery, and passion meet as one and, as seamlessly as she jumps through genres, Tina Turner ensconces every ingredient to Rock-n-Roll in a way that no one else has ever been able to do.

She’s been a huge role model of mine since I can remember and was even playing in the background when I lost my virginity! But my earliest and fondest memories of Tina Turner involve being in my mom’s car as a kid and belting out the lyrics to Proud Mary with her while the windows were down, cruising around conservative Darien, CT on a church Sunday. Awesome.

Check out the incomparable Tina Turner and one of her classic performances of Proud Mary, below, and if you don’t own her greatest hits collection, what the fuck are you waiting for?

This week Fred Hystere devotes this week’s Daily Classics to 4 of his favorite pop divas. Today is Roisin Murphy’s day and to celebrate we’re going to go back in time and revisit her old band Moloko and their amazingly quirky piece of pop perfection, Pure Pleasure Seeker.

Roisin Murphy has turned into quite the disco diva in the past few years in the eyes of the casual pop music fan. However, what many of you don’t know is that from 1995-2003, Roisin was “Disco Diva Extraordinaire” as lead singer of the often overlooked duo, Moloko. In fact my reason for naming Roisin to this week’s list of Fred Hystere’s Daily Classics in the Pop Diva category has less to do with her two albums as a solo artist and more to do with the incredible body of work she and ex-flame Mark Brydon created during their time as Moloko.

Moloko came barreling out of the gates in 1995 with one of the best songs released that year, Fun For Me. The vocals in that single brought to mind a playful version of Beth Gibbons from Portishead and they never looked back from there, releasing no less than 4 albums in the span of 8 years together.

Last week while at a show in Brooklyn, I met a made a lovely new friend named Emma Barnett, who many of you will recognize as an amazing writer, broadcaster and more, for publications such as The Daily Telegraph. One of the things Emma and I bonded over was our mutual admiration for Moloko. It’s so rare that I get to speak about my love for Moloko with anyone here in the States and we both went down our list of favorite Moloko songs together before landing on a song that, in my mind, is one of the most under appreciated pop music gems of the last 20 years, Pure Pleasure Seeker.

All of the quirkiness that I love about Roisin Murphy and Moloko is summed up in the 6-minute plus version of Pure Pleasure Seeker, but you can get the basic gist of its brilliance in the video-edited version, all the same.  But, because I’m not a huge fan of the music video they shot for Pure Pleasure Seeker, I’ve also included one of my other favorite videos by Moloko, Fun For Me and one of Roisin’s best solo singles, You Know Me Better. I highly recommend buying every Moloko album you can get your hands on!

http://roisinmurphy.blogspot.com/

Moloko – Pure Pleasure Seeker

THOMAS | Myspace Video

One of my favorite discoveries of the last year or so has been the sexy Australian pop music duo of Tim & Jean. They hail from Mandurah, a coastal town south of Perth on the west coast of Australia and only began making music together in 2009. Since then they’ve been on a whirlwind tour that began with an opening slot for Empire Of The Sun, followed by several more opening gigs for the likes of Franz Ferdinand, Moby, Two Door Cinema Club, La Roux, Goldfrapp, and Art vs Science, two name a few.

As their fan base has grown, so has the rabid insistence for the release of a proper album. Last year, the guys spent the better portion of 2010 holed up Jean’s home studio writing, producing, and recording an album by themselves, before heading out here to NYC to record some additional vocals and guitar bits. Finally, their debut album entitled ‘Like What’ was mixed by John O’Mahoney, who many of you will know from his days working with David Bowie, Coldplay, Bob Dylan, and Metric.

Like What was just released last week, but I have a feeling that it will end up firmly in my Top 10 albums of the year, when all is said and done. Their knack for songwriting has the same sort of naturally classic, creative feel to it that fellow Aussies, Gypsy & The Cat possess and, those of you that follow this site, know how completely obsessed I am with Gypsy & The Cat I am.

I’m sure Tim and Jean will have a new single and video before long but, since they’ll be new to many of you, check out their video for Come Around that was released at the end of last year.  If you like what you see, pick up their debut album and spread the word!

http://www.facebook.com/timandjean

http://twitter.com/#!/wearetimandjean

http://www.myspace.com/wearetimandjean

http://www.youtube.com/wearetimandjean

http://itunes.apple.com/au/artist/tim-jean/id397721681