This has been a while...
Anyway, I used to into hardocre when I was 14 to 17. At 17 I discovered a more free kind of music.
If you want bands and names...
Agnostic Front; together with the Cro-mags, the heart and soul of NYHC. Their early recordings are the very essence of hardcore to me; you can't play your instrument decently, you have very primitive recording material, you don't even have a crowd or an audience but you're still doing what you believe in.
I won't mention Madball because some of its members are also in AF.
Biohazard: great band. Too bad that it had to end with poor albums ('Kill or Be Killed' was very weak) and Evan Seinfeld (bass/vox) becoming Tera's pimp. These guys deserved better.
Right Direction; a band from M-Town or Maastricht (NL). They split but are back together. Unlike many other HC-bands they have a very good sense of melody.
Believe it or not but there were a lot of bands from Maastricht (which is remarkable keeping in mind that Maastricht is only a very small town).
You had One night Stand who started it all, Backfire!, Demon Jooker Junior, 400$ Suits and many more bands.
That scene really flourished until the suicede if Richard Bruinen (Backfire!). Afterwards a lot of bads just couldn't really go on anymore.
Tree: Boston based band. Not sure of you count them as hardcore or as a mixture of stoner and punk.
Then a lot of overrated bands like Violation of Trust, Ryker's, Hard Resistance, Backfire!