A little while back, mopey indie rockers The National contributed the song “Exile Vilify” to the “Portal 2” soundtrack. The video game teamed up with the Brooklyn band to host a contest to find the best fan-made video for the song. We now officially have the winner of that contest.

I give you the world’s saddest hand puppet:



You can watch a bunch of other fan vids on the “Suggestions” bar of the YouTube page for the hand puppet video. But I don’t recommend it, as listening to “Exile Vilify” more than once will completely eviscerate your spirits.

You can follow the band on Twitter here.

Probably the single thing I regret most from the month of October was going home for the night instead of sticking around Opolis to hear Milagres’ harmonic indie goodness. So far, this month’s biggest regret is virtually the same: I ditched out on the Future Islands show, again, to catch up on my Zs.

As much as I love hearing live music, not being a zombie is also very important to me.

Getting to reprise my role as a sound guy and ride around in Jonathan Fowler’s “VDub Sessions” Vanagon with Milagres and the namesake of Peter Wolf Crier was a more-than-nice consolation prize, however, and the song “Halfway” even managed to latch its irresistible hooks into my brain, which has since been unable to dislodge them.

As always, Nathan Poppe’s “VDub Sessions” work is terrific. We even managed not to crash the van, although some poor freshman — admit it, you did it the first month you lived in Norman, too — drove the wrong way down Gray Street mid-performance. Almost everybody in the band noticed, including the singer for Milagres, which earns them all bonus points for performing under duress. Watch:

The saddest I’ve been in recent memory was when I had to forfeit my tickets to the off-the-rails rave that Brooklyn noise-pop duo Sleigh Bells hosted at my favorite concert venue in the world, Cain’s Ballroom. I love sweaty shows. I love aggressive, loud pop music. But I had to work, which resulted in Matt being a sad panda for about a month.

This was shortly before I got hired by the good people here at the Gazette, who now help to get me into shows like this (thanks, guys!). I mean, seriously, look how awesome this was, courtesy of expert Tulsa photographer Jeremy Charles:

Today the band announced “Reign of Terror,” the follow-up to its 2010 debut, “Treats,” by way of a video that captures the disturbing, harsh intensity of Derek Miller’s guitar riffage against Alexis Krauss’ chic femininity, dressed up in a military uniform like a Bond villainess who only speaks grunts of Russian. I really hope they somehow wield this thing into an insane dance-pop-metal hybrid.