Right on! Yeah, the lines tend to blur when looking back on that period of time, as a lot was happening at the same time. The Blake Babies were playing around the Boston/Providence area back in 1986, but didn't release their first album until 1987. I remember that they were playing songs that eventually ended up on Earwig (their 2nd album released in 1989) way back in those early days when I was mixing on a local stage. Hey Babe (such a great album) came out in 1992, same year as It's a Shame About Ray by the Lemonheads, which Juliana was highly involved in playing bass on all but one track. How the Lemonheads got Jeff "Skunk" Baxter to play on one of those album tracks is beyond me - another great album. Seems like Hey Babe got quickly overshadowed by Become What You Are, released in 1993 with the Juliana Hatfield Three lineup. Getting recognition on MTV, and the song Spin the Bottle ending up on the Reality Bites soundtrack didn't hurt its success.
Other great bands on that Boston/Providence scene back in the late 80s include Throwing Muses and Salem 66. I would guess that the girl you dated had some of their stuff. Kristin Hersh has continued releasing music with some form of the Throwing Muses, 50FootWave, and as a solo artist to this day. Saw her play with 50FootWave at Amoeba in Hollywood back around 2005, and it was a great show. Tanya Donelly left the Throwing Muses and founded The Breeders, and then Belly, which had a pretty big hit with Feed the Tree from their 1993 album Star. I haven't followed her career very closely, but I don't think she has remained as active of an artist as Kristin. Salem 66 was never as successful as Throwing Muses, but it's worth your time to check out their stuff wherever it might be available. A Ripping Spin and Frequency and Urgency are both really good albums. I actually have Frequency and Urgency sitting on my turntable right now.
I think you are correct that the Seattle scene was happening at that same early 90s timeframe. Don't remember if I moved from Massachusetts to Los Angeles in 1988 or 1989, but it was somewhere around then. I opened my coffee bar in North Hollywood in 1991, and I remember that Mike Starr (original Alice in Chains bassist) would come in and sit at the bar for like three to four hours every day. The band was recording the Dirt album at One on One Recording, which was just a few doors up the block from my place. He was a super quiet guy, not unfriendly, but not really interested in making small talk. He would just sit their by himself for hours drinking coffee and staring at the wall, I suppose prior to their scheduled session times. I know he had a history of substance abuse issues, but at least during that period of time, he never appeared to be nodded out on opiates.
Anyway, I'll stop rambling on. Kinda fun to jog your memory once in a while with distant memories, some of which feel like a different lifetime.
