Terri is an ‘outsider’ musician. Or, to put it another way, she writes naive-but-brilliant pop songs then performs them in a sub-karaoke style so jaw-droppingly bad that it beggars belief.

Interestingly, Terri’s work is conceived as a multimedia package—she first came to the attention of citizens of her hometown of Chicago by selling VHS tapes of her performances while she worked as a limousine driver—and, like her delivery, these promos are spectacularly inept.

So, what raises Terri’s work above the level of the plain old shite? Her nonchalance. Jan Terri knows that she is a great songwriter, Jan Terri knows that she is an attractive woman, Jan Terri knows that by rights she should be topping the pop charts. That few of these things are true matters not: Terri’s self-belief is contagious because she happily goes about her business, putting almost no effort into her performances, so sure is she that the mantle of greatness is upon her.

Here is Jan Terri’s best song, and best video, in my view, Losing You. I’m particularly fond of the literal visual interpretation of the lyrics. And the fact that she looks like a black pudding in those leathers.

By way of contrast, here is Get Down Goblin, a Hammer horror inspired Halloween song. At first viewing I worried that the relatively high production values of this piece diluted Terri’s appeal, but the moment roughly halfway through when she appears to forget that she is being filmed is so charming that I came around. Also, the scene in which Terri mimes an organ solo on a piano is, perhaps, an image that speaks more eloquently of Terri’s genius than words ever could.

See also: Baby Blues a love song which is, quite frankly, deeply terrifying, and perhaps the equal of Losing You (note that the blue-eyed subject of the song is played by a man with brown eyes). And finally, there is Little Brother, which both daringly appropriates Frere Jaques and features a nod to the Shangri-Las with its spoken introduction. Terri also released an album, High Risk, but, sadly, I can find no trace of it on the web.

Update: it has been brought to my attention that Jan Terri’s genius has been brought to the attention of the head of a major record label, and that a certain lupine pop star may have plans to cover Get Down Goblin—the Jan Terri revival starts here?

Ninety short minutes of Jandek at the piano, playing not much, but playing it again and again and again, not-singing commonplaces arranged in such a way as to seem significant, asking pointless questions and pointlessly answering them - ‘Whither the moon? Yonder.’ - with Alex Nielson working less as a percussionist than as a vibrationist, bowing cymbals and making bowls resonate with sticks.

So good that I feel quite ill now.

If you don’t know him, Jandek is a deeply reclusive Texan who, since 1978, has been steadily releasing albums of beautiful and upsetting music, mostly a sort of grim amateur blues that resolutely ignores the conventions of songwriting. As to his motivation, his thinking, that’s anyone’s guess: the only thing anyone knows about Jandek is his name, and the fact that his records are released by Corwood Industries, a label that releases nothing else. You can read more at Seth Tisue’s definitive Guide To Jandek, and order CDs from Corwood Industries, P.O. Box 15375, Houston TX 77220 (at just $4 each, if you buy 20 or more albums).

Here’s the last song, title unknown, from the hour-long Instal show, with Jandek backed by Richard Youngs on bass and the amazing Alex Neilsen on drums:

• Jandek Live - Song 8

And here’s one of my favourite Jandek songs, from the 1986 album Telegraph Melts:

• You Painted Your Teeth