Headline: "She don't need no stinkin' record label"

Santa Barbara singer-songwriter Jennifer Terran, who's touring in support of her new CD, "The Musician," knows how to work the press, massage it, knead it into submission, trick it, lead it by the nose. Hell, she's working her black magic on me right now. How does she do it?

Well, it helps to appear nekkid on your CD cover and pull edgy stunts like cutting your long, beautiful hair for "art's" sake. It also helps to play up the whole "I've turned my back on the major label, corportate music machine" thing.

Her CD booklet contains a childish drawing with an airplane towing a sign that reads, "She Warned you, Mr. Recordman," and over her nekkid pictures (just a hint of nipple revealed), she's scrawled, "The record industry could not exist without the musician, but the musician can exist without the musician- and so, she killed the idea."

Sure, it's all a little sophomoric, but I'm a sucker for hyperbole and obtuse, arty "statements." The question is, does all this shuck-n-jive undermine what's important about Terran, namely her music? There are so many bells and whistles in her "persona presentation" that one might forget how gorgeous are her melodies, how mesmerizing her voice, how thoughtful her lyrics- in short, that there's a real artist at work under all her nekkid showboating an stunt pulling.

This Friday, Nov. 10, Jennifer Terran will perform at 8 p.m. with double bassist Brendan Statom and opening artist Pat Milliken at Linnaea's Café in SLO. Don't be distracted from the truth: Terran is a potent, innovative, serious artist; her music will drive straight through you.