The Club Foot Orchestra was founded in 1983 in San Francisco by Richard Marriott (trombonist, keyboardist and singer). A large ensemble (keyboards, saxophones, clarinets, oboe, trumpet, flute, violin, guitar, bass, percussion), it specialized in interdisciplinary instrumental/orchestral music. The songs on the first album, Wild Beasts (Ralph, 1986), draw on waltz (Chinese Flowers), polka (Suerte De La Noche) , swing (Elk's Dance Hit), soundtracks (Time Axe Bag X D) and especially Zappa's big-band prog-rock (Wild Beasts).

On their second album, Kidnapped (Ralph, 1987), sensual 1950s night-club leitmotivs stand out (Entrance, Kidnapped Coed). The album is at the same time more jazzy than the previous one and more parodistic, as underlined by some gags driven by circus rhythm (They Say Over There), some irreverent imitations (Thrashinsky i>) and some sarabandes without rhyme or reason (Zoogaloo). In this pan-stylistic vaudeville there is also room for the most twisted instrumental solos of the era, e.g. that of the violin in Take It To Mars, alongside others in impeccable period style, e.g. those of the sax and the trombone in Clair. The most grotesque big-band irony triumphs in the unleashed poly-rhythmic and poly-ethnic dance of Davil In My Soup.

The Club Foot Orchestra also performed the background music for the silent film Caligari, ranging from Weill's cabaret to Stravinsky's polytonality, from swing to psychedelia.

Guitarist and singer Steve Kirk, a long-standing member of Club Foot Orchestra, released Pop (Kirk, 2001), a collection schizophrenically divided between sumptuous instrumentals (Summer Leaves, Pop Quiz, the swinging The Doomsayers Were Right) that mix Rota's film soundtracks, French progressive-rock and orchestral Frank Zappa, and bluesy tunes a` la Eric Clapton (And So, River Of The White Lake). Unfortunately, the former (the highlights of the album) are brief and few.