Legends of San Francisco’s 1980s, ’90s et seq, from the days when Dogpatch was all about the Club Foot, Valencia Street’s Elbo Room had all the elbow room it needed and you could count on a supermodel to buy into a club down on Folsom where they could cook up the acid jazz for the carriage trade!

Guitarist Will Bernard was on that Folsom Street scene at the Up & Down Club in the early 1990s, as the acid jazz of the Broun Fellinis and Alphabet Soup blossomed in spots all over town alongside the Berkeley High musicians, including Bernard, in Peter Apfelbaum’s Heiroglyphics Ensemble and numerous other aggregations, and soon spawning Charlie Hunter’s breakout band, T. J. Kirk, with John Schott and Scott Amendola  alongside Hunter and Bernard. Bernard, and Hunter, left for New York around then, but Bernard is back from time to time, certainly when the Club Foot Orchestra comes together to start rehearsals for the SF Silent Film Festival…

A student of clarinet performance at SF State, Beth Custer was playing at Club Foot on Third Street at 22nd in 1983 with her punk band Scropes when she signed on to the Club Foot Orchestra aborning in the mind of Richard Marriott; much history ensued–as if Scropes itself isn’t history! And history is today, with the Orch persisting, counting Custer and Bernard among its members.

Dozens of brilliant San Francisco artists have tumbled through the Club Foot’s roster, including the current core members Sheldon Brown, Kymry Esainko, Chris Grady, Sascha Jacobsen, Deirdre McClure, Gino Robair and Alisa Rose, and, over time, Dave Barrett, Myles Boisen, Joshua Brody, Matt Brubeck, Catharine Clune, Steed Cowart, Richard Egner, Josh Ende, Eric Drew Feldman, Opter Flame, Kaila Flexor, Elliot Kavee, Steve Kirk, Dave Kopplin, Bob Lipton, Jason Marsh, Doug Morton, Nik Phelps, Julian Smedley, Snakefinger, Kenny Wollesen and Arny Young. Bruce Ackley and Eugene Chadborne were there for a predecessor group, Orquestra FOOT a dentra la Boca.

Come hear Beth & Will at Bird & Beckett. You won’t be sorry.

$25 cash cover charge. Doors open at 7:20 for the 7:30 show.
BYOB and a mask.

Live and also live streamed, our the B&B Youtube channel and facebook page. Search either platform for Bird & Beckett at showtime and you’re bound to find it.

Donate if you’re able. It helps us meet the musicians’ guarantees and shores up our economics to meet the expense of giving you live music by San Francisco’s amazing professional musicians and providing them with one more venue in the venue desert that is San Francisco in the 2020s. To be fair, there are probably dozens of spots in this city where you can hear live, creative music. Music is all around you. Seek it out. Catch some here, tonight.