Mid-career, Keith relocated to San Francisco in 1984 to pursue his musical ambitions away from the big business atmosphere of NYC. Catching the interest of Greg Kihn's Management company soon after his arrival, Keith rounded up stellar Bay Area musicians, including upcoming guitar phenom Charlie Hunter and bassist extraordinaire R.D. Maynard to re-form The Keith Gale Band, later to be named "Keith Gale's Parallel Universe". Dates with this lineup included support slots with Chris Isaak, Beat Farmers, Joe Ely, Chesterfield Kings and an EP for BlueBlack Records "Five Piece Screwdriver Set".

After a period of experimenting with lineups and instrumentation, everything came together best with Judd Austin on guitar and vocals (formerly with Tower of Power's Ed McGee Group) and Trey Sabatelli (Jefferson Starship, The Tubes) on drums. Enjoying the chemistry of this combo and feeling that he had begun to truly assimilate S.F.'s atmosphere, Keith became "Keith Karloff" and the band became "The GONE JACKALS" - a musical unit.

"Out & About with THE GONE JACKALS" (ConTon-BLUEBLACK), the group's first full length C.D. was produced by Keith Karloff and Gary Hobish and released in 1990, making it the first official recording of The Gone Jackals. This C.D. had moderate success on college radio stations throughout California & Washington State as well as affiliate airplay on San Diego powerhouse station 91X. The band now expanded its performing territories to Southern CA, sharing bills with such acts as T.S.O.L. and Fantasy 7 while playing college campuses and their adjacent towns throughout California. Legendary N.Y.C. guitarist Johnny Gale (who happens to be Keith's brother) featured two songs from "Out & About" plus two additional Karloff penned numbers on his 1994 album 'Gale Force' for Guitar/Relativity Records and was awarded best guitar record of the year by Guitar Shop Magazine

The Gone Jackals second full length C.D. "BONE TO PICK" is the featured R&R soundtrack to THE LUCAS ENTERTAINMENT GROUP's smash hit interactive motorcycle P.C. game FULL THROTTLE which has sold hundreds of thousands of units worldwide. "BONE TO PICK" sold out its entire first run of 2K units within two months of initial release, primarily through mail order via the BLUE/BLACK P.O. Box (listed in the game information) with only a limited amount of "in store" distribution and no airplay whatsoever. "BONE TO PICK" was then added to the LUCAS Mail Order Catalog and immediately become the #1 selling item in the entire Catalog. Keith personally selected each piece of music for every scene in "Full Throttle" as well as Engineering and Producing this music into the game itself.
This joint venture can be considered the exact point of the sea change in new music deliverey - the addition of vital, real music from real bands to gaming devices - now the biggest selling field in the music industry. The Gone Jackals could easily be considered the first pioneers of this major shift in the recording industry.
"Full Throttle" went on to win "Soundtrack of the Year Award" from PC Gamer Magazine, the most prestigious award in the gaming field. Other bands competing for this honor were Metallica, Aerosmith and NIN.

"Bone To Pick" also caught the attention of Don Johnson's Music Director, who featured the song "Born Bad" in the "Baby Boy" episode of the hit C.B.S. Television series Nash Bridges.

"Blue Pyramid" was the follow up to "Bone to Pick" and proved the be the band's final recording. An adventurous and rambling collection, "Blue Pyramid" spawned the singles "No Sign of Rain" and "Business As Usual" which received rotation airplay on the ROQ affiliate stations along with considerable commercial play nationally. Music from this CD was used in Stinky Pictures (Atlanta, GA) slasher flick "Cheerleader Autopsy" and Angelic Entertainment's movie "The Maze". This third and last CD took The Gone Jackals as far as Texas and S. Carolina for performances.