Heh, I know all those. I used to listen to a lot of stuff off Tooth and Nail. I wouldn't call myself a fan of Christian music in general, especially not these days, but a lot of the stuff on T&N was fairly dubious in religious association. Most of the guys were Christians, but not all of the music could really be identified as such (which was fine). I used to go to $5 punk shows in garages and warehouses around here all the time, and for a couple bucks you'd always see like 10 bands and it would always go to 2 in the morning. It was awesome. The whole ska/punk/swing trend got pretty annoying after a while, but there was a surprising amount of crossover. You had tons of kids who listened to like Op Ivy, Less Than Jake, the Bosstones, Reel Big Fish, and all that other malarkey but would still come to the other shows because the music was just as good. I don't know what the metal scene is like now, but it was pretty much just as good back then too. You'd have tons of bands that just played good music, nobody cared what the association was, so you got a lot of crossover, decent crowds, and people who were into whoever was playing just because it didn't suck. Living Sacrifice was pretty popular back then, so was Zao. Strongarm was pretty huge too, even though I never liked them much, and the whole Florida hardcore scene took off like a fucking rocket at various points.
I'm glad you mentioned Six Feet Deep, too, because to date that's one of my favorite hardcore acts of all time. Myk Porter was a pretty amazing lyricist, and his post-hardcore stuff with
Brandtson is actually pretty good if you can get past some of the emo stuff, but it's hard to imagine that the same guy was doing really good hardcore like
this. Still one of my all-time favorite bands, and if I ever just want to cry my eyes out and become emotionally devastated, all I have to do is listen to
The Road Less Traveled. It's a shame the stuff they're doing now can't possibly compare to what they accomplished there.
