TERRY Allen is a songwriter, playwright, performer and visual artist.

The man from New Mexico, via Kansas, is also a country musician and it is this capacity that he will be performing at Fibbers in York on Wednesday night.

"People tell me it's country music, and I ask 'Which country?'" he says.

Reluctant as Allen is to be pinned down, Fibbers boss Tim Hornsby says of him: "His catalogue, reaching back to 1975's Juarez album, has been uniformly eccentric and uncompromising, savage and beautiful, literate and guttural.

"He's a central figure in the Lubbock Mafia, a close-knit family of idiosyncratic musicians that includes Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely and Butch Hancock, and this original chicken-fried renaissance man can save the world, raise hell, share your beer or even car-jack you with a mischievous twinkle in his flea market-painting baby blues."

Allen is touring Britain on a 17-date tour that ties in with the re-issue of debut album Juarez on the Sugar Hill Records label. Newly expanded with an epilogue of two recordings from 2003, this collection of story songs narrates a couple's star-hungry, alcohol-fuelled adventures including murder and a chase through Southern California.

How do we find you this beautiful April day, Terry?

"Well, I'm sitting down drinking some coffee in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I've lived here since 1987..."

Why New Mexico?

"Oh, I think it's the space and the personal necessity of your life. The way my life is, I have to come into contact with someone else to make a living, so it's nice to have a place to come and go from," he says.

Does the view from your window matter to you?

"Sure it does. If the view is horrible, you change it. New Mexico is an under-populated state and you can be free of all signs of life within half an hour. That's kind of typical of western America," Terry says.

His working space is important to him, particularly with the diversity of work he does.

"By the nature of things, I do a lot of my work on site. I write a lot of my music here but I also write on the road, so I guess it's an internal place and space I'm looking for," he says. "Boredom is the great mother of invention, and the rhythm of long travel can just kick your ass into gear."

Make the most of Terry Allen's visit to York next week because his British visits are rare. "I tour but not a lot because I would rather be making something than promoting it. Others are better at promoting, so let them do it," he says.

"One of the things about making music is that the music never stops. It may stop in its CD form but it never stops when you're performing it or re-recording, and that's how it differs from writing a text or doing a painting or sculpture or installation.

"Maybe the central point of what I do is that it's always in flux and it's always spooky."

Terry Allen & Bukka Allen, Fibbers, York, May 5. Tickets: £11 advance, £13 door.

Updated: 16:29 Thursday, April 29, 2004