Jan Terri
- Music Department
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Endearingly bad amateur Italian-American singer/songwriter Jan Terri
was born on June 17 in Chicago, Illinois. Short (5' 1"), plain, and
dumpy, with a gratingly nasal off-key voice and a strangely engaging
abrasive, yet earnest persona, Jan possesses a certain lovably
ham-fisted charm that makes her essentially the latter-day equivalent
to notorious 60's freak celebrity old lady singer Mrs. Miller. She grew
up in the Chicago suburb of Franklin Park. Terri was in a jug band with
her mother while her father used to perform in local bars in blackface
as the "Black Elvis." After earning a B.A. in Broadcast Communications
and a Management Certificate for Sound Engineering from Columbia
College in 1983, Jan became a back-up singer for the country band The
Windy City Cowboys. Alas, Terri was forced to put her musical career on
hold because of family problems. She worked as an assistant manager at
Montgomery Ward's and eventually got a job as a limousine driver in
1992. Jan started recording her own uproariously awful songs and making
hilariously crude music videos of said songs. Moreover, Terri gave out
VHS tapes of her videos to various clients at the limousine service in
order to further her musical career. Jan befriended advertising
executive Jim Thompson, who in turn gave her press kit to legendary
shock rocker Marilyn Manson. Manson was so impressed with Terri's
sweetly naive lyrics and winningly inept, yet heartfelt enthusiasm that
he had her sing at a birthday show for his then girlfriend Rose McGowan
on September 5, 1998. Jan subsequently was the opening act for Manson
for a handful of concerts he did in Chicago from 1998 to 1999. In 2000
Terri appeared as herself on an episode of "The Daily Show." Her simply
astonishing low-rent music videos for her gloriously ghastly songs
"Baby Blues," "Losing You," "Rock and Roll Santa," "Get Down Goblin,"
"Journey to Mars," and "My Little Brother" are all available to be seen
for free on YouTube and have thus enabled Jan to amass a sizable and
well-deserved avid cult following.