Perhaps the reason the recent Sub Pop Xmas party was such a low-key affair was how little big-ticket bands like the Yo Yo's have done to earn the label any holiday scratch. Insiders speculate Sub Pop laid out upwards of $100,000 on the Creepers-and-ducktail-festooned Brits, and what did they get for their extravagance? A lousy 1,100 records scanned. True, Soundscan doesn't take independent outlets into account (and oh how they love to point it out), but really, when the numbers differ by such a large amount, do the mom-and-pop stores really make that much of a difference? So say they managed to sell another 1,100 through the indies (a truly kind estimate), that still leaves Sub Pop choking on a $50 price tag for every album sold. Those very same insiders claim that the $100,000 estimate doesn't include the $35,000 the label spent on the Yo Yo's tour support, which, one might recall, happened prior to the July release of Uppers and Downers, the band's debut for the label. When will the label get it through its collective skull that all that fancy money should be funneled into its few solid bands that have proven themselves to be moneymakers, or that promise to become so? Beachwood Sparks is far from my cup of tea, but given their recent press buzz, they might do well with a sizable investment from Sub Pop. How about Damien Jurado's gorgeous Ghost of David? I'm sorry, did he tour? The label recently struck a deal with the Shins, a fucking great band with rapidly growing underground recognition; hopefully Sub Pop will channel some of the money allotted for the upcoming release of, oh, let's just say the Black Halos, into that of the Shins, and maybe we'll have something to... oh, forget it.

The nice-guy rock star hunted to extinction? Say it isn't so. The New York Post's Page Six gossip hounds recently published a bit claiming Eddie Vedder pushed his estranged wife of six years to the breaking point by taking a catalog model, Jill McCormick, on the road with him during Pearl Jam's last tour. Insiders (they do get around) say the gossipers don't quite have their timelines straight, and that the model thing happened after the breakup. Whatever. Yet another rock star has taken up with yet another model. How original.

Last Saturday brought the return of Loudermilk to their adopted hometown of Seattle. A couple years back, the band (at the time still teenagers or barely of drinking age) packed up their small-town sensibilities and traded the Tri-cities for the Big City in search of a break. A major-label bidding war quickly ensued and soon the four-piece landed not only a deal with American Recordings but a tour with Mötley Crüe and Megadeth. Loudermilk set up temporary residence in Los Angeles as they worked with several big-name producers on their forthcoming--long coming--debut, but seemed grateful to be back in Seattle last Saturday where they joined friends Post Stardom Depression for a night of loud, attitude-filled, ass-kicking (read: hipsters won't like it) rock. PSD are rumored to have signed a multimillion-dollar deal with Interscope Records, and Loudermilk's album is speculated to have costed several hundred thousand to record, so expect to see these bands sweating their hearts out for The Man in the new year. Hopefully they'll manage to scan more than 1,100.