ABOUT
Experience an authentic and heartfelt take on the music of the Grateful Dead with Mind Left Body. Combining an undeniable love and attention to the shimmering details hidden in a bountiful universe of live repertoire, Mind Left Body seeks to provide their audience with the opportunity to traverse the music multitudes of the Grateful Dead canon.
Mind Left Body is a New England based ensemble specializing in performing thoughtful interpretations of classic Grateful Dead music. Hailing from the Pioneer Valley, performances showcase vocal harmonies and expansive musical explorations while also staying deliberate and focused on the beautiful songwriting talent that propelled the Grateful Dead to the ranks of one of America’s best rock and roll bands.
MEET THE BAND
Guitarist and vocalist Gordon Clark moved from Burlington, Vermont in 2012 to play music in the Pioneer Valley region of his native state of Massachusetts. As a classical trombone player, Gordon veered “off-piste” to explore jazz, salsa, rock, and funk while living in Vermont with groups including Barika, Bearquarium, Afinque, and Kat Wright and the Indomitable Soul Band, and has shared the stage with many talented musicians including Jennifer Hartswick (Trey Anastasio Band), Craig Myers (Rubblebucket, Mike Gordon Band), Roy Hargrove, and Ray Vega. Recently, Gordon has had the opportunity to explore his love for the guitar and has been largely inspired by the style and roots of the music of Jerry Garcia, with whom he shares a birthday. No, really, he does.
Drummer Brian Marchese is most recent addition to MLB. With the exception of the odd gig over the last decade with Jamband Godfather Bruce Mandaro (whose wisdom, experience and ageless energy made playing with him a hell of an improv training ground, in all the best ways), Brian’s a newcomer to this corner of the music world, though he’s been a Kreutzmann fan ever since 8th grade, when he obsessively taught himself to drum by playing along to Europe 72, alongside Cosmo’s Factory, Get Yr Ya-Ya’s Out, Who’s Next etc. However, while he’s fluent in the Dead’s unique musical language, Brian has spent the last three decades recording and gigging in bands that could be described as various shades of indie, like The Aloha Steamtrain, The Figments, The Fawns, Gentle Hen, Christa Joy and the Honeybees, and lots more. The point being, all have been song-based, arrangement based combos, with songs generally kept under four minutes. He’s jammed with Robyn Hitchcock, played in a short lived band with Chris Collingwood and Lloyd Cole and in a rock opera with Dave Dreiwitz. Recording session credits add significantly to the resume. Then there’s his solo project, Sitting Next to Brian, which is the outlet for his tuneful, somewhat oddball brand of psychedelic pop. This is all to say that Brian brings a head full of ideas and an inspired approach to Dead drumming that at any point can be just as inspired by Coltrane, Can or The Cure as it is by the almighty GD.
Guitarist/vocalist Dan Cornely has been playing guitar since the early 90’s and has had the pleasure of playing in bands with Seth since high school. Dan has been enamored with Bob Weir’s incredible and unique rhythm guitar style since he learned the Bobby parts to Eyes of the World and was lucky to be asked to fill the Bobby role in Mind Left Body in September 2020. He has recently rediscovered his love for the Stratocaster - the perfect guitar for his hands.
Seth Deysher has been playing bass for over 30 years and performing the music of Grateful Dead in bands with Dan since the mid-1990s. He met Gordon at a spa employee holiday party in 2018 and the following year joined Gordon for a weekly Dead jam that eventually morphed into Mind Left Body.
Over the years Seth’s bass has been heard in incidental music on MTV and TLC, and his music production has appeared on a primetime NBC drama. His favorite electric bass recording is Marcus Miller on Miles Davis’s “Fat Time”, which also has a wicked guitar solo by the song’s namesake, Mike Stern.
Seth shares a birthday with Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, but the similarities end there.