Jan Terri is an ‘outsider’ musician, who has lived her entire life in Franklin Park, a suburb of Chicago. She writes oddly catchy pop songs, and then performs them in a style so atrocious that it’s beyond belief. The end result is music that is strange and abrasive, yet very endearing. Terri’s self-assuredness is contagious, and she happily goes about her business, knowing in her heart that she is a star.
During her high school years, Jan and her mother were in a jug band together, and they played homemade instruments made from everyday household objects. Terri played a saxophone made from a paper-towel roll, a funnel, foil, bottle caps and a kazoo. Her father was known to put on blackface and work the bars, performing as the “Black Elvis.”
In 1983, she became a backup singer for a country band called “The Windy City Cowboys,” and also began to write her own songs. A few years later, a series of family problems halted her budding music career, and she got a job as an assistant manager at a Montgomery Ward’s and later started driving a limousine.
In 1992, she focused once again on her recording career, and began producing her own music. She assembled a tape of six songs, and also recorded music videos for the songs. The videos show Terri and her friends acting out the lyrics at various Chicago-area settings. The lip-synching is terrible, and the editing is amateurish (and that’s putting it kindly). “Friends in the industry said I needed a video,” Terri says, “So I began cranking them out.”
In the video for “Losing You,” Terri is picked up by a limousine, which drives her down Lake Shore Drive. The drive is interspersed with shots of Terri singing alongside a canal, and riding around on a motorcycle with a guy. The video ends with Terri exiting from the limo at O’Hare Airport, presumably sadly separated from the guy on the bike. Here is the video for “Losing You“:
The video for “Baby Blues” involves Terri and her relationship with a cowboy who has, “baby blues, so crystal clear. Clear enough to fill a swimming pool,” (though with her childlike accent it sounds more like “swimming poo”). The video features close-ups of the cowboy’s brown eyes. Here is the video:
“My Little Brother” shows Terri, and her friends from the beauty parlor, running around downtown Chicago, while Terri mashes together a frantic version of “Frere Jacques” and “Sea Cruise“:
“Get Down Goblin” features Terri and her friends dancing around a haunted house:
In 1993, Terri sent a press kit to various record companies, that contained a copy of her first album, her video reel, and a fact sheet with information about her, such as the claim that she had “taken third place in a Sally Field look-alike contest.” One of the press kits fell into the hands of an ad rep named Jim Thompson, who called Terri, and they became friends. Whenever anyone came into Thompson’s office, he made them watch Terri’s videos.
In 1998, Jim Thompson had gotten a job at Tower Records, where he booked Marilyn Manson for an in-store appearance. Thompson gave him a copy of Terri’s press kit, and two months later Manson brought Terri to Los Angeles to perform at a birthday show for his girlfriend, actress Rose McGowan. The next time Manson performed in Chicago, Terri opened for him at the Aragon Balroom. The time after that, Marilyn Manson set up a performance area backstage, and Terri performed a private concert for him and his friends.
Terri’s videos have since landed her on The Daily Show, and her music and videos are widely circulated underground through various peer-to-peer file sharing communities, as well as video sites such as YouTube. There is currently a documentary in the works about her life story.
“Rock ‘n Roll Santa,” is perhaps my most favorite Jan Terri song. Her singing sounds like an odd hybrid of Dot Wiggin (the singer from The Shaggs) and Daniel Johnston, with a good dose of Elmer Fudd dropped in for good measure…”Wock and Wo Santa… weawy, weawy wocking tonight!”
LISTEN TO MP3:
DOWNLOAD:
Jan_Terri_-_Rock__n_Roll_Santa.mp3
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This is the best yet! And you totally nailed it with your opening and closing paragraphs. The west is weally just icing on the wacky wockin’ cake!