Binging on The Club Foot Orchestra

Welcome back... and Happy 2008 to you!

To kick off the year, I'm offering up music from the beloved Bay Area band The Club Foot Orchestra. After garnering a reputation as an idiosyncratic dance band/avant jazz group with two albums under their belt, they then embarked on providing scores for silent films... probably one of the first groups to do so - they certainly paved the way for others like the Alloy Orchestra and other ensembles to also succeed in that niche. In my opinion, they were the best.




Their first score was for THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, composed by band leader Richard Mariott and conducted by Steed Cowart. Originally released on cassette on Ralph Records.




NOSFERATU, composed by Mariott and Gino Robair, conducted by Steed Cowart.
This was for the short version of the film, prior to its restoration. Originally released on cassette by Ralph Records.



METROPOLIS, collaboratively scored by Mariott and CFO. Released by Heyday Records. Tracks 1-18 are sequenced to work as a soundtrack to the video of Giorgio Moroder's restored version of the film. Track 25 is the soundtrack to Peter McCandless' film "Pool Of Thanatos," composed by Beth Custer.

1. Metropolis
2. Workers' Chorus
3. Stadium, Eternal Garden Of Pleasures & Maria's Gaze
4. Industry, Theme Of The Ancient Slaves, The City
5. Joh Frederson
6. Four Views Of Metropolis
7. Rebellion
8. Door V
9. Yoshiwara
10. Rotwang's House
11. Will These Ten Hours Ever End?
12. Descent To The Catacombs
13. Story Of Babel, The
14. Love In The Catacombs
15. Rotwang's Visage
16. Cathedral
17. Abduction In Imbroglio
18. Claustrophobia
19. Descent Into Madness
20. Dance And Hallucination
21. Riot II
22. Trance & Fire
23. Climax
24. Aftermath
25. Pool Of Thanatos

And, as added bonuses:



Erik Satie's score for Rene Clair's short film ENTR'ACTE, performed live by CFO;




SHERLOCK JR., collaboratively scored by Mariott & CFO, performed live at the Castro Theatre sometime in 1994 (tape not properly labelled - apologies). Conducted by Dierdre McClure.

CFO also did scores for PANDORA'S BOX and several other films and was scoring an animated Felix The Cat show in the mid-90's; SHERLOCK JR. is available on DVD with the Clubfoot score as well as another silent film, LEGONG, DANCE OF THE VIRGINS. For availability of other CFO projects, check the CFO and Richard Mariott's official sites.

If you're in the Bay Area this April, you can see Club Foot in performance as part of The San Francisco Jazz Festival.