After two singles for the local indie label IMP Records, the grunge flagship label Sub Pop took notice of The Spinanes in 1992 and signed them. 1993 saw the release of their debut album Manos, which made it to the number one spot on the U.S. college radio charts, helped by the success of the single Noel, Jonah and Me, which went into rotation on MTV's 120 Minutes, among others. Instead of building on this success, however, Gates and Poulf tended to withdraw from the spotlight in the years that followed, with the exception of a few compilation contributions, preferring to make guest appearances. Rebecca Gates can be heard on albums by Elliott Smith and Ben Lee, while Scott Plouf helped out with Team Dresch and Beck.

Around 1996, the second Spinanes album was to be undertaken; however, Plouf had in the meantime received a request from Built to Spill to join them as a drummer, which complicated the work on the original duo. After the album, titled Strand, was released, Scott Plouf finally dropped out to become a full member of Built to Spill. Rebecca Gates then moved to Chicago, got involved in the music scene there and eventually found new fellow musicians for the Spinanes, which from 1997 also included bassist Joanna Bolme (later with Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, among others) and drummer Jerry Busher. In this line-up and under the direction of John McEntire (Tortoise) and with guest appearance of Sam Prekop (The Sea and Cake) the third and last Spinanes album Arches and Aisles was recorded in 1998. Gates kept the band active until 2000 and has been releasing solo since then. In the same year the rare collection Imp Years was released on the Superchunk label Merge Records.