Here's another entry in the categories of "Until There is a Portlandist" and "Seattlest Has a One-Track Mind." An AP article making the bloggity blog blog rounds has dug up a swath of indie bands telling Hummer to go stick it in their 10MPG gas pipe and smoke it. Hummer ad execs, while drinking designer vodkas and wondering how they could be as hip as that Cohen kid on the O.C., must have picked up on the recent trend of using less well-known "indie" songs to sell shit these days. Unfortunately for them, they are much, much dumber than indie musicians, and Seattlest is thankful for that.

Hummer has likely been courting indie musicians in part for what they perceive to be the caché of being "in the know" (to wit: just about anything being played during Grey's Anatomy). What AP writer Otis Hart fails to point out is the painfully obvious: while $50,000 is an INSANE amount of money for a band on a small label, it is bus fare compared to major commercial licensing deals. That was the amount offered to Portland band The Thermals, who thought a few nanoseconds on it, and said no. Just what we'd hope to hear from a band whose second album is entitled Fuckin' A.

When asked why Hummer doesn't go after more mainstream artists for their commercials, Lance Jensen, president of Hummer ad agency Modernista, tries to make it sound like he and his advertising, gas-guzzling cronies are listening to KEXP and KCRW while driving their Hummers to go see really edgy unknown artists. After that they probably drink a bunch of Full Throttle and go sky diving. But the truth is: indie bands come cheap. Is there really much more to it than that? Jensen pontificates eloquently on his more altruistic motives: "I don't know, I guess I just want artists to make money. I don't want them to be poor."

If that were really the case, then maybe Hummer wouldn't be offering them what is really a pittance in the industry, and would instead be pitching those bands a better going rate for licensing their song in a commercial. Moby was paid $200,000 by Range Rover for his song God Moving Over the Face of the Waters (he supposedly donated every penny to "environmental organizations"). Even at that price, Seattlest holds out hope that most indie bands will continue to give Hummer the finger.

As an aside, the above image is from FUH2.com. Seattlest has a tear in our eye from discovering this site. Now we know how the Star Wars geeks and furries feel when they finally discover a gathering of their brethren for the first time. It turns out we're not alone in our Tourette-like inability to avoid the middle finger salute for any Hummer driver we encounter on the road.