Sandy Rock’s the name of a house on Cape Cod where my family resided from 1997-2024, purchased by my grandparents in the 1950s. There’s a rock in the salt marsh inlet in front of the house that gave it its name. I took a portion of the proceeds of the sale of the house and set it aside to fund the Sandy Rock Poetry label, so there’s a direct connection between the two.

I own a few vinyl records containing songs featuring my parent’s voices, and for more than sixty years, my father—a literature major who ended up practicing medicine—was involved with singing groups that produced LP records and CDs. At one point in the 1980s, when I had access to the proper equipment at WTJU, I remember conspiring with him to reclaim sounds of his old reel-to-reel tapes from his years with Yale’s Alley Cats (without success, unfortunately). Acknowledging his encouragement (setting example in the realms of books, music, and photography), with Sandy Rock Poetry I offer a sincere tip-my-hat to my parents and our sacred family Rock for providing so much. They continue to provide even now that they’re gone!

Further considering the topic of nomenclature, it’s fair to say that for four decades I’ve been enamored by, and involved with, combination(s) music and poetry, and therefore sandy (gritty) “rock poetry” is a cool name on that register.

Progress:

I went over to Kingston to buy inks for stamping CURIOUS SEALIFE flexidisc covers this morning (1/14), then went Uptown to meet with Henry Lowengard about his GPT work (some of which can be heard via (https://largelanguage.bandcamp.com/), and possibly collaborating on something. Henry is a friend and fan of Brian Dewan’s, and was the first person to purchase the flexidisc. I haven’t seen him in a while, so suggested I deliver the record in person as a way to catch up with him.

In the afternoon, I set up a little printmaking studio in the Q 25 Kitchen, tested out all of the inks, and printed a few covers.

Early feedback on the flexidisc:

So far, less than a handful of people have heard our flexi. Each have had a different experience with it. I had to make a couple of turntable adjustments to get it to play, and Brian had trouble getting one of the tracks to play at a certain point. Looking at the surfaces of several discs, it seems like some are different than others, and maybe there are some imperfections…

Then, a day after I saw him, Henry L. emails:

Just a heads up ! The Flexi disc’s center hole is about 0.25 mm too small and hugs the spindle! This isn’t so bad if the spindle rotates with the turntable, but not if it doesn’t!
I can probably work around this.

These flaws (if that’s what they are) are only vaguely bothersome to me. Anyone who wants to hear a crystal-clear version of Brian’s CURIOUS SEALIFE pieces can check out the digital album. Nonetheless, we are thinking of dropping a little troubleshooting note into the insert/sleeves…

Sandy Rock Poetry is an independent Hudson Valley-based record label formed to circulate voices of poets and sounds around poetry in various audio formats. Formation commenced in 2025, a doing by radio programmer / recording engineer-archivist / literary publisher / mechanical humanist Chris Funkhouser.

The CURIOUS SEALIFE (digital) album and flexidisc are now available via Sandy Rock Poetry’s Bandcamp site

—Chris Funkhouser / Tivoli, NY / 16 January 2026

the album and flexidisc are now available via Sandy Rock Poetry’s Bandcamp site

—Chris Funkhouser / Tivoli, NY / 15 January 2026

CURIOUS SEALIFE, the digital album emerging in January 2026, presents 29 poems I recorded at Q 25 Studio in Tivoli, NY, plus a bonus track of Dewan’s tuning of Robert Burns’ “Ae Fond Kiss” recorded on the radio program I produce, Poet Ray’d Yo (WGXC, Hudson, NY), in September 2023.

In addition to the album, Sandy Rock Poetry is producing a limited edition flexidisc featuring 6 tracks from CURIOUS SEALIFE mixed by Brian and I.

Yesterday I tried my hand at composing a press release, and this is what came out:

Given CURIOUS SEALIFE’s title, iconography, and its spoken content, someone might believe that a few of the ocean’s most sage creatures temporarily transformed themselves into human form, then proceeded to write a series of nearly thirty Earth-observant poems about what they saw, which Brian Dewan conveniently channels into creation in this collection.

I’m not sure what Brian will think of that, or if it will remain in the press release—it’s what came out in a free-write.

The flexidisc cover insert combines photocopied information with individually hand-stamped imagery, applied with custom-made rubberstamps of the cover image created by Brian.

Today I visited the Water Street Art Studio in Catskill to meet with Liz Martinez, who transposed the cover image prepared by Brian into a rubberstamp. Liz showed me proper printing techniques.

We made a few test pressings.

The artifacts described above can soon be uncovered, procured, and heard via sandyrockpoetry.bandcamp.com

Sandy Rock Poetry Postoffice Box 63 Tivoli, NY 12583

Brian Dewan

Born

June 14, 1963 (age 62)

Genres

• Folk

• electronic

• chamber music

• jazz

Occupations

Musician, composer, vocalist, instrument builder, illustrator, cartoonist

Instruments

• Electric zither

• organ

• piano

• autoharp

• koto

• accordion

• Dewanatron

Years active

1985–present

Labels

Bar/None, Instinct, Eschatone

Brian Dewan (born June 14, 1963) is an American multi-media artist, who produces music, audio-visual performances, decorative painting, furniture, poetry, filmstrips, illustrations, and musical instruments. He has released three albums of songs and performed extensively in clubs and concert halls as a solo artist and as a member of various ensembles. He lives in Catskill, New York. Brian is the brother of artist Ted Dewan and the cousin of musical instrument builder/musician Leon Dewan.^[1]

Music

Genre

Dewan has a cross-genre approach to music, although he is predominantly known for his folk-tinged vocal stylings and instrumental electronic music, which on a performance level are generally mutually exclusive. His vocal repertoire references folk music, hymns, popular songs from bygone eras (especially topical songs from the 19th and early 20th centuries), and rock music. He also composes original songs reflecting these influences.

These genres permeate his first two full-length albums, Brian Dewan Tells the Story (1993, Bar None Records) and The Operating Theatre (1998, Instinct Records). His songs often contemplate the nature of submission to authority, often in a storytelling manner. His lyrics are by turns humorous, philosophical, and contemplative. His historical song repertoire often betrays a post-modern irony in the re-telling.

Live

In live performance, Dewan accompanies his singing with a home-built electric zither, outfitted with eight humbucker pickups and 88 strings, sometimes piped through a leslie cabinet or guitar effects pedals. He also plays a variety of other instruments, including autoharp, koto, organ, and accordion. His electronic music, either solo or in collaboration with his cousin, Leon Dewan, tends to be more sprawling and free-form, often evoking the dissonance of early analog electronic music.

Bands Worked With

Dewan has worked with They Might Be Giants,^[2] Sesame Street, Flaming Fire, Jed Davis, The Music Tapes, Loser’s Lounge, The Shondes and The Musical Stones of Skiddaw.

He is a member of the Raymond Scott Orchestrette, a group dedicated to reinterpreting Scott’s compositions, and appeared on their 2002 album Pushbutton Parfait. He also composes and performs with the Patient Island Singers, a project loosely centered around the topic of Roosevelt Island. He was an original member of the Blue Man Group Tubes house band, for whom he composed musical scores. He later sued the group for authorship claims, and eventually prevailed in court.^[3]

Musical Work

Dewan’s 2007 album Words Of Wisdom (Eschatone Records) was the first in a series of folk archival recordings called the Humanitarium Series. Each record in the series will collect a set of song artifacts by theme: temperance, school songs, hymns, folksongs ancient and modern, institutional music, advertisement and persuasion, ditties, jingles, and popular music.^[4]

He has also performed a song for the original soundtrack CD for the “Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?” television series, though this track was commissioned for the CD and never used in any other context.

Visual and multi-media art

Filmstrips

Brian Dewan’s series of I Can See filmstrips use the technology of the educational filmstrips from the mid-twentieth century as a point of departure for imaginative personal invention.

Each panel features one of Dewan’s fanciful drawings, usually rendered in magic marker or watercolor. The images are accompanied by elaborate soundtracks in which Dewan is heard, adopting a deadpan narrator’s voice, and playing various musical instruments to create a different miniature soundtrack for each panel of the filmstrip.

When it is time for the projectionist to advance the strip to the next panel, Dewan’s voice is typically heard singing “boop” in close imitation of the noise traditionally used for this purpose. The themes of the strips often seem as though they could have been taken from actual educational strips – Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Civic Pride, and a short history of the Organ. Biblical stories have all served as conceits for the filmstrips. The strips tend to take many free-associative liberties and are by turns satirical and surreal, often whimsical and sometimes touching on serious themes. “Before the White Man Came” seems as though it might be about colonialism or racism, but the “White Man” of the filmstrip starts to seem more likely to be a folkloric evil spirit, with a charged and ambiguous relationship to racial stereotypes.

In 2003, Dewan created an installation at the Pierogi 2000 Gallery in Brooklyn which transformed the appearance of the gallery into that of an American classroom from an indeterminate bygone era, perhaps from the 1940s. He presented his filmstrips regularly during the course of the month-long exhibition, to audience members seated in old schooldesks.

Shrines

Dewan has created a series of what he terms “shrines”. They are constructed of wood and other materials, such as light bulbs, clocks, photographs and bottles. The best known shrine is the one appearing on the cover of They Might Be Giants’ album Lincoln. The shrines range from about one to six feet tall and often evoke New England church architecture with their lean geometrical spires. While the word “shrine“ might connote a site created for devotion to a spiritual entity, Dewan’s shrines seem to exist not as a conduit for worship, but as playful aesthetic objects.

Dewan created a number of shrines for New Year’s Eve parties and performances, and those shrines often have some sort of illumination which could be turned on at midnight. At least one had a drink-dispenser built into it. The cabinetry he built for his recent series of electronic instruments, created in collaboration with his cousin, Leon Dewan, often continue some of the visual ideas behind the shrines. His New Year’s Eve shrine ritual involves completing the shrine only moments before midnight.

Dewanatron

Brian Dewan currently works with Leon Dewan under the name Dewanatron. Together they have designed and built a series of synthesizers in custom cabinetry, often reminiscent of either New England churches or 1940’s school house architecture. The instruments create sounds evocative of the early electronic music. The instruments were exhibited and concertized at the Pierogi 2000 gallery in Brooklyn in December 2005, Pierogi Liepig in Germany in April 2006 and at “Another Year in LA” gallery as well as the Steve Allen Theater in Los Angeles in August and September 2007.

Cover art for albums

Dewan has created album art for others, such as the cover of David Byrne‘s Uh-Oh, They Might Be Giants’ Lincoln, Beat Circus’ Dreamland, and the interior artwork of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel.

Discography

Albums

• Tells the Story (Bar/None, 1993)

• The Operating Theatre (Instinct, 2001)

• Dewanatron [with Leon Dewan] (2005)

• Live at the Auk (Obedience School, 2005)

• Irregular Hours, Vol. 1 (Live at Pierogi) [with Leon Dewan, as Dewanatron] (Obedience School, 2006)

• Sleep on It - Electronic Excursions (Obedience School, 2007)

• Words of Wisdom (Eschatone, 2007)

• Semi Automatic [with Leon Dewan, as Dewanatron] (Cuniglius, 2008)

• Ringing At The Speed Of Prayer (Innova, 2009)

• The Greenhorns Presents: Brian Dewan Sings Grange Future: Songs of the Patrons of Husbandry (2014)

• The Hunting of the Snark (Obedience School, 2017)

• Catskill Escapade [with Elizabeth Karp] (2024)

EPs

• Hello Recording Club EP (March, 1993)

• Hello Recording Club EP (September, 1994)

Guest appearances

• “The Violin” (w/ Eileen Ivers on violin), Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? soundtrack

References

1.

“Cyclemas Bio”. Archived from the original on July 18, 2011. Retrieved April 22, 2010.

“Brian Dewan”. TMBW: The They Might Be Giants Knowledge Base. Retrieved November 24, 2025.

Court filing, Dewan vs. Blue Man Group Limited Partnership, 73 F.Supp.2d 382 (1999)

4. Maltempi, Domenic. “Brian Dewan - Interview and Ruminations”. Perfect Sound Forever. Archived from the original on February 4, 2012. Retrieved April 22, 2012.

External links

• Brian Dewan’s page at Eschatone Records

• Dewanatron site which describes many of the Dewan cousins recent musical inventions

• Brian Dewan: Tells the Story bio from Bar/None Records

Sandy Rock Poetry is an independent Hudson Valley-based record label formed to circulate voices of poets and sounds around poetry in various audio formats. Formation commenced in 2025, a doing by radio programmer / recording engineer-archivist / literary publisher / mechanical humanist Chris Funkhouser.

—Chris Funkhouser / Tivoli, NY / 13 January 2026