If Seattle’s late-80s “grunge” sound had a blueprint (which it most certainly did), it would be Minneapolis’ famed 80’s Indie Rock beginnings and the Twin Tone Records axis of bands. Seattle was a bit more Sabbath-Zeppelin-coke instead of Minneapolis’ Stones-Neil Young-booze, but even the look (flannel/unkempt overgrown mane/constant cigarette) was purely Minnesotan. Heck- there’s even lots of Skandahoovians in Washington state- just like Minne-snow-da, doncha know. But if the hype was for The Replacements and Soul Asylum, I’d always go for a quartet of local bands I liked way better that sounded similar: The Glenrustles, The Rank Strangers, The Draghounds, and Beyond Zebra. BZ had a 45 & two CDs that can be tracked down online or in Minnesota music stores, I’ll include some outtakes from their official releases here. Thanks to Jason Sack for allowing me to post these, now go ahead & track down the CDs, OK? I’ll post the 45 tracks when I go thru the Prospective Records master tapes later 2011.
Meatstick
One Big Broken Heart More Than it Seems Had a Beer
Five questions for Jason Sack (Beyond Zebra):
1. Early Rock n Roll memories? …riding to school with my first drummer Ben in his Camaro listening to Van Halen. That was pretty awesome, especially compared to the other days when I carpooled with the school Librarian in a rusty old LTD that had some kind of toxic fumes circulating throughout the car. Actually, it was pretty nice of her to give me a ride. And I’ve got something on which to blame all of my lost brain cells.
2. How did you hook up with the Austin gang The Third Eye?
I went to the U of M, and made the unfortunate decision to stay in a dorm – a dorm that happened to be the same one where all the football players and sporty people lived. Sidebar: this was the dorm where a son of one of the big time U of M football coaches (Tinglehoff) was found to have stashed his collection of animal body parts under his bed. Good times. Needless to say, I didn’t quite fit in. As usually happens, I ended up sitting with the other disaffected youth in the lunchroom – we must somehow emit “I don’t belong here either” vibrations. It turned out a few of these like-minded kids were from Austin MN. One of them was Dave Krejci, and we became friends. I then met the Mike Nicolai and the Draghounds, also from Austin. We all got along pretty well – some of us ended up living together at a run down house over in SE.
3. Tell me about recording “Isn’t it Grand, Boys?” for the “Gone Today Here Tomorrow” CD.
We had Tommy Roberts bring a DAT and a stereo condenser mic down to our practice space in the Colonial Warehouse and we just recorded it live. Good tune.
4. How did Beyond Zebra collapse?
Greg I think had had enough of the touring lifestyle, and decided he didn’t want to pursue the rock life anymore. Grant wanted to do his own thing. It was a harsh blow at the time, because my whole life was organized around the band. But we sure had a great time (from what I can remember) and we’re all still friends.
5. Is your middle name rally “King”?
Yes. My uncle’s first name was King. That’s how it ended up coming to me. He played a mean boogie woogie piano.
Coincidentally, the first Beyond Zebra cassette has recently been blogged here.
Here’s Beyond Zebra’s Facebook Page.
gojohnnygo dot com 
Young musicians, let this be a lesson to you. NEVER give your rough mixes to ANYONE. Thank Jebus the vocals for Meatstick hadn’t yet been tracked.
Seriously though John, thanks for the kind words and for the trip down memory lane.
Jason actually tried playing on guitar with Third Eye 1st but I felt he was just “too good” as a guitar player and didnt match our low-fi dumbass style as a git player. So he went to bass(replacing Paul Paiement)
which actually suited Jason better because it allowed him more time to wink at the hot grunge babes during our 7th St Entry gigs.
I had such a blast playing Third Eye – Sean, Dave and Mr. Swank. Wherever you may be – it was a gas.
Oh my word. Those vocals are out there. Just like the truth.