For a while, earlier in the season, the Boston Bruins were amazing. Scoring was frequent and widely spread among the team (six of whom ended up with 20+ goals). And after every one of the team’s 131 goals at TD Garden this season, the song above played.

It is a remix of “Kernkraft 400″ by Zombie Nation, although everyone just calls the song “Zombie Nation” because people are idiots. It’s from a genre of music known as “awful”, but folks who are nuts for categorization can file it under “techno music for people who positively demand a hangover tomorrow.”

And it’s an awful choice for a city that actually has decent music. Follow me past the jump and let’s peruse.

Just for the record, Zombie Nation is a German group. According to the nameless scribes at wikipedia, the main melody– sawtoothed to hell and back– is lifted from a Commodore 64 game I never played. It’s totally jock jam’d out, and it has got nothing to do with Boston, hockey, or any human experience I recognize.

So just as DC gets awesomer when its arenas play Minor Threat, Trouble Funk, or even Mary Chapin Carpenter, Boston would be wise to consult  these touchstones.

Aerosmith. One of America’s best rock bands and prolific across three decades (only totally wasted for 1.5 of them), Aerosmith is ubiquitous and hard to hate. They put on a pretty great live show (sorry, kids, you missed your chance), and they knew how to write a song . It’s sad that their biggest hit– the one from that asteroid movie– was written by Dianne Warren and not them.

Appropriate usage: There is no bad time to play Aerosmith during a hockey game except maybe the national anthem. Maybe.

Converge. One of the most respected bands in the metalcore scene in and beyond Massachusetts, Converge is a holdout from a bygone era. They’ve got no ornamentation; it’s all riffs dark and rich, with lyrics growled instead of sung. Their seething disgust for the state of the world is present and genuine, so the listening experience is innervating: it’s more about winding up than spooling down.

Appropriate usage: Fight music.

New Edition. Pop impresario Maurice Starr began his ascent to global-scale creepiness by fabricating this blatant Jackson 5 ripoff group back in the early 80s. As the voices of Bobby Brown and company dropped, the group grew unruly and Maurice had to scrape the bottom of southtown’s barrel until he found the New Kids on the Block, which was a crime against ears. (Although Donnie still rules.)

Appropriate usage: Good for introducing the visitors or the dreaded Kiss Cam.

The Dresden Dolls. Amanda Palmer’s duo is a sort of punk-rock/cabaret thing. They operate in a world of enhanced reality, which is way too provocative for and contrary to the fluorescent world of TD Garden. Still, your life is made better by letting Mrs. Neil Gaiman in. And if you can meet a girl or boy who is into Dresden Dolls, that is usually a girl or boy worth knowing.

Appropriate usage: No practical applications for hockey.

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Although ska was only really popular for like a half a month in 1997, I consider Dicky Barrett’s band apart from the fad. Plus, they’re eminently Boston. They’re stocked with pale white boys and people of color alike. They sing about girls and getting job, but also Sinatra and AIDS. They’re vehemently anti-hate– which was pretty bold stand considering some of the racist oi! bands that were in their peer group back in the early 80s. And their live shows were crazy intense– it was like a slam dance master class in the pit.

Appropriate usage: Ideal hockey music, and their cover of KISS’s “Detroit Rock City” is totally boss.

There are a million more great bands from Boston (which I’m sure you’re litanize in the comments), and each one makes “Kernkraft 400″ more awful as a goal song, but at least it’s not “Chelsea Dagger.”

Peter teamed up with RMNB graduate (and current ESPN.com/WaPo writer) Neil Greenberg on the Up the Pucks podcast this week. [NSFW: Naughty language]

Up the Pucks is a podcast equally enraptured with hockey and punk rock. Each week, Peter (not me) and Brandon call up a co-host from another NHL city. This time it was us.

Humangous big link to Peter and Neil on UTP

In addition to the forestalled realignment effort and the Washington Capitals, we discussed the reunions of Refused and At the Drive In. After, Neil and I had a very provocative discussion about the Caps situation right now, and I bet you’ll find it as depressing as I did.

Here’s your pull quote: “I think what we’re looking at is a team that is broken.” – Neil

I’d like to personally thank Brandon and Peter for having me on the show.

They run a great program, and it was a blast. Here’s my favorite ATDI song, just for kicks: