The Fibonaccis were an American

art rock Art rock is a subgenre of rock music that generally reflects a challenging or avant-garde approach to rock, or which makes use of modernist, experimental, or unconventional elements. Art rock aspires to elevate rock from entertainment to an art ...

band formed in 1981 in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

. The band consisted of songwriters John Dentino (

keyboards Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

) and Ron Stringer (

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

), Magie Song (

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

), Joe Berardi (

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

) and later Tom Corey ( bass).

Formation

The Fibonaccis were formed out of the Los Angeles

art punk Art punk is a subgenre of punk rock in which artists go beyond the genre's rudimentary garage rock and are considered more sophisticated than their peers. These groups still generated punk's aesthetic of being simple, offensive, and free-spirit ...

scene which included bands such as

Wall of Voodoo Wall of Voodoo was an American rock band from Los Angeles, California, United States. Though largely an underground act for the majority of its existence, the band came to prominence when its 1982 single " Mexican Radio" became a hit on MTV and ...

and

Oingo Boingo Oingo Boingo () was an American new wave band formed by songwriter Danny Elfman in 1979. The band emerged from a surrealist musical theatre troupe, The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, that Elfman had led and written material for in the ye ...

. Deriving their name from 13th-century mathematician

Leonardo Fibonacci Fibonacci (; also , ; – ), also known as Leonardo Bonacci, Leonardo of Pisa, or Leonardo Bigollo Pisano ('Leonardo the Traveller from Pisa'), was an Italian mathematician from the Republic of Pisa, considered to be "the most talented Western ...

and citing musical influence from

Nino Rota Giovanni Rota Rinaldi (; 3 December 1911 – 10 April 1979), better known as Nino Rota (), was an Italian composer, pianist, conductor and academic who is best known for his film scores, notably for the films of Federico Fellini and Luchino Visco ...

and

Ennio Morricone Ennio Morricone (; 10 November 19286 July 2020) was an Italian composer, orchestrator, conductor, and trumpeter who wrote music in a wide range of styles. With more than 400 scores for cinema and television, as well as more than 100 classica ...

, the band's music was typically characterized by intricate piano and guitar lines, over-the-top and sometimes incomprehensible vocals and frequent use of unconventional instruments such as

mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...

clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...

s and

Mellotron The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which pushes a length of magnetic tape against a capstan, which pulls it across a playback head. A ...

s. The Fibonaccis' music was nearly impossible to categorize, fusing such disparate elements as

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde sensibilities and non-roc ...

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

, world music,

cabaret Cabaret is a form of theatrical entertainment featuring music, song, dance, recitation, or drama. The performance venue might be a pub, a casino, a hotel, a restaurant, or a nightclub with a stage for performances. The audience, often dining or d ...

ambient Ambient or Ambiance or Ambience may refer to: Music and sound * Ambience (sound recording), also known as atmospheres or backgrounds * Ambient music, a genre of music that puts an emphasis on tone and atmosphere * ''Ambient'' (album), by Moby * ...

spoken word Spoken word refers to an oral poetic performance art that is based mainly on the poem as well as the performer's aesthetic qualities. It is a late 20th century continuation of an ancient oral artistic tradition that focuses on the aesthetics of ...

and

funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the m ...

, a combination one newspaper critic described as "

elevator music Elevator music (also known as Muzak, piped music, or lift music) is a type of background music played in rooms where many people come together (that is, with no intention whatsoever to listen to music), and during telephone calls when placed on ...

from

hell In religion and folklore, hell is a location in the afterlife in which evil souls are subjected to punitive suffering, most often through torture, as eternal punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hell ...

".Spurrier, Jeff
Fibonaccis are Rota Rooters
''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

''. June 27, 1982. Lyrically, the band regularly explored dark and esoteric subject matter ranging from

serial killer A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A * * * * with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...

s to

UFOs An unidentified flying object (UFO), more recently renamed by US officials as a UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon), is any perceived aerial phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. On investigation, most UFOs are id ...

, presented in a

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...

and

surrealist Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...

fashion.

Career

The Fibonaccis released their debut EP ''(fi'-bo-na'-chez)'' in 1982, following up with a 12" single/EP, ''Tumor/Psycho/Slow Beautiful Sex'', the next year. In 1984, the group independently filmed a

music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a m ...

for an unreleased cover of

Jimi Hendrix James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most ...

s "

Purple Haze "Purple Haze" is a song written by Jimi Hendrix and released as the second single by the Jimi Hendrix Experience on March 17, 1967. The song features his inventive guitar playing, which uses the signature Hendrix chord and a mix of blues and Ea ...

". Played in an instrumentally discordant fashion and sung in screeched vocals, the psychedelic music video re-worked the song into an anthem for a

cult In modern English, ''cult'' is usually a pejorative term for a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal. This ...

, book-ended by audio clips from

Charles Manson Charles Milles Manson (; November 12, 1934November 19, 2017) was an American criminal and musician who led the Manson Family, a cult based in California, in the late 1960s. Some of the members committed a series of nine murders at four loca ...

interviews. By the mid-1980s, the Fibonaccis had emerged as a prominent presence in the Los Angeles art rock scene,Burton, Paul
Fibonaccis
''Option Magazine''. 1986. acting as touring support for the likes of Sparks, Oingo Boingo and Wall of Voodoo and performing as part of the 1985 New Music America festival. Throughout their career, the Fibonaccis regularly contributed their music to independent film soundtracks. In 1986, the band collaborated with composer

Richard Band Richard Howard Band is an American composer of film music. He has scored more than 140 projects, including '' From Beyond'', which won the award for Best Original Soundtrack at the Sitges Film Festival. Lately he scored ''Exorcism at 60,000 Feet' ...

on the score for the horror-comedy ''

TerrorVision ''TerrorVision'' is a 1986 American science fiction horror comedy film directed by Ted Nicolaou, produced and written by Albert and Charles Band and composed by Richard Band, all of whom would go on to found and work with Full Moon Features in 19 ...

'', recording five tracks including the movie's

theme song Theme music is a musical composition that is often written specifically for radio programming, television shows, video games, or films and is usually played during the title sequence, opening credits, closing credits, and in some instances at so ...

. Their song "Sergio Leone" was used for the closing credits of 1982's '' Android'' and the previously unrecorded track "Art Life" was featured in 1987's '' Slam Dance''. The Fibonaccis appeared onscreen as the band "Sexy Holiday" in the 1987 comedy ''

Valet Girls ''Valet Girls'' is a 1987 American comedy film directed by Rafal Zielinski, written by Clark Carlton, and starring Meri Marshall, April Stewart, Mary Kohnert, Jack DeLeon, Jon Sharp, Michael Karm, Steven Lyon, Randy Vasquez, Stuart Fratkin, and T ...

'', lipsynching to "Slow Beautiful Sex" and "Purple Haze" during a party scene. In 1987, the band released their sole studio LP, '' Civilization and Its Discotheques,'' on the Blue Yonder Sounds label. In explaining the reason for the LP's delay, the group said that various hassles and difficulties with record companies had plagued a more timely release. Their frustration over the album's recording, added with a lack of media recognition, led to their breakup in 1988. In 1992,

Restless Records Restless Records is a record label that was started in El Segundo, California in 1986 by Enigma Records and primarily released alternative, metal, and punk records. Restless also licensed and released records from Bar/None Records, Metal Blade R ...

released a 26-track retrospective of the band's work called ''Repressed - The Best of the Fibonaccis''. To celebrate the release of the album, the Fibonaccis performed a one-off reunion show in Los Angeles on November 19, 1992, their final public performance with all the members.

Post-Fibonaccis

Following the Fibonaccis' disbandment, John Dentino continued to compose music independently and has recently been working on independent

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

s. Joe Berardi went on to perform and tour with Wall of Voodoo's

Stan Ridgway Stanard "Stan" Ridgway (born April 5, 1954) is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, and film and television composer known for his distinctive voice, dramatic lyrical narratives, and eclectic solo albums. He was the original le ...

, and has collaborated with artists including

Lydia Lunch Lydia Lunch (born Lydia Anne Koch; June 2, 1959)Martin Charles Strong. ''The Great Indie Discography''. 2003, page 85 is an American singer, poet, writer, actress and self-empowerment speaker. Her career began during the 1970s New York City no ...

Congo Norvell Congo Norvell was a band led by Kid Congo Powers (Cramps, Gun Club, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Kid Congo Powers & the Pink Monkey Birds) and Sally Norvell (Prohibition & the Norvells). Congo Norvell formed in 1990 after Powers and Norvell met at th ...

Donovan Donovan Phillips Leitch (born 10 May 1946), known mononymously as Donovan, is a Scottish musician, songwriter, and record producer. He developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelic rock and world mus ...

and

Rufus Wainwright Rufus McGarrigle Wainwright (born July 22, 1973) is a Canadian-American singer, songwriter, and composer. He has recorded 10 studio albums and numerous tracks on compilations and film soundtracks. He has also written two classical operas and set ...

. Magie Song acted in a number of independent films in the early 1990s, including

Gregg Araki Gregg Araki (born December 17, 1959) is an American filmmaker. He is noted for his heavy involvement with the New Queer Cinema movement. His film ''Kaboom (film), Kaboom'' (2010) was the first winner of the Cannes Film Festival Queer Palm. Ear ...

s ''

The Living End The Living End are an Australian punk rockabilly band from Melbourne, formed in 1994. Since 2002, the line-up consists of Chris Cheney (vocals, guitar), Scott Owen (double bass, vocals), and Andy Strachan (drums). The band rose to fame in 199 ...

'' and

Stephen Sayadian Stephen Sayadian, also known as Rinse Dream, is a multi-talented artist who was active in the 1980s and 1990s. He was the advertising creative director for Larry Flynt Publications and an acclaimed art director & production designer responsible f ...

s '' Dr. Caligari'', and currently works as an

acupuncturist Acupuncture is a form of alternative medicine and a component of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in which thin needles are inserted into the body. Acupuncture is a pseudoscience; the theories and practices of TCM are not based on scientifi ...

in Los Angeles. Tom Corey died from a

cerebral aneurysm An intracranial aneurysm, also known as a brain aneurysm, is a cerebrovascular disorder in which weakness in the wall of a cerebral artery or vein causes a localized dilation or ballooning of the blood vessel. Aneurysms in the posterior circul ...

in late 2001.Kendrick, Davi
Tom Corey, 1957 to 2001
''

L.A. Weekly ''LA Weekly'' is a free weekly alternative newspaper in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1978 by Jay Levin, who served as president and editor until 1991. Voice Media Group sold the paper in late 2017 to Semanal Media LLC, whose paren ...

''. October 3, 2001 Ron Stringer served as film editor and critic for the ''

LA Weekly ''LA Weekly'' is a free weekly alternative newspaper in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1978 by Jay Levin, who served as president and editor until 1991. Voice Media Group sold the paper in late 2017 to Semanal Media LLC, whose paren ...

'' and later as an English professor in L.A.'s community colleges. He died from liver cancer in late 2021. Currently, the entire Fibonaccis physical discography is

out of print __NOTOC__ An out-of-print (OOP) or out-of-commerce item or work is something that is no longer being published. The term applies to all types of printed matter, visual media, sound recordings, and video recordings. An out-of-print book is a book ...

, with ''Repressed'' being their only work released on compact disc. In 2021, the group released the majority of their repertoire on worldwide

music streaming service A music streaming service is a type of streaming media service that focuses primarily on music, and sometimes other forms of digital audio content such as podcasts. These services are usually subscription-based services allowing users to stream d ...

s and created a Bandcamp page for digital download. In 2022, The Fibonaccis opened their archives and digitally released two new collections of live radio shows, club rarities, and demos.

Band members

*Magie Song -

lead vocals The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of t ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

*John Dentino -

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder was ...

*Joe Berardi -

, percussion, vibes, " mortecello" *Ron Stringer (formation – 1986) -

, bass, vocals *Tom Corey (1983–1988) - bass, guitar,

, vocals

Discography

Studio albums

* '' Civilization and Its Discotheques'' (1987, Blue Yonder Sounds)

EPs and singles

* ''(fi'-bo-na'-chez)'' (1982, Index Records) **1. "Sergio Leone" (Dentino, Stringer) - 2:12 **2. "Somnambulist" (Dentino, Stringer) - 3:03 **3. "The Ordinary Women" (Dentino,

Wallace Stevens Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance compa ...

) - 2:23 **4. "The Genius" (Dentino, Stringer) - 2:48 **5. "Second Coming" (Dentino, Stringer) - 3:31 **6. "Maculae" (Dentino, Song, Stringer) - 2:33 **7. "Rice Song" (Dentino, Song, Stringer) - 2:41 * ''Tumor'' (1983,

Enigma Records Enigma Records (also known as Enigma Entertainment Corporation) was a popular rock and alternative American record label in the 1980s. History Enigma Records launched as a division of Greenworld Distribution, an independent music importer/dis ...

) **1. "Tumor" (The Fibonaccis) - 3:25 **2. "Slow Beautiful Sex" (The Fibonaccis) - 2:38 **3. "Psycho" (

Bernard Herrmann Bernard Herrmann (born Maximillian Herman; June 29, 1911December 24, 1975) was an American composer and conductor best known for his work in composing for films. As a conductor, he championed the music of lesser-known composers. He is widely re ...

) - 3:15 * '' TerrorVision: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack'' (1986,

) **1. "TerrorVision" (The Fibonaccis) - 3:40 **2. "The Friends of Crime" (The Fibonaccis) - 2:47 **3. "Sack of Suit Suite" (The Fibonaccis) - 2:58 **4. "Advice to a Mutant" (The Fibonaccis, Hal Negro) - 2:43 **5. "He Can't Stop Laughing" (The Fibonaccis) - 2:50

Compilations

* '' Repressed – The Best of the Fibonaccis'' (1993,

)

Compilation appearances

* ''Film Noir: American Style'' (1984, Ding Dong Records and Tapes) **"Looking for Eddie" (Berardi) - 4:45 * ''Radio Tokyo Tapes Vol. 2'' (1984, Enigma Records) **"

" (

) - 3:58 * ''The Lives of Lhasa'' (1984, Lhasa Productions) **"Disgusting Man (live)" - * '' Slam Dance: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack'' (1987,

Island Records Island Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded in 1959 by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in Jamaica, and was eventually sold to PolyGram in 1989. Island and A&M Records, anoth ...

) **"Art Life" (Fibonaccis) - 2:21 * ''The Best of the Radio Tokyo Tapes'' (1987, Chameleon Music) **"Purple Haze" (Hendrix) - 3:58

References

External links

Official Fibonaccis website

The Fibonaccis Bandcamp page

The Fibonaccis on MySpace

John Dentino's official website

*

The Fibonaccis The Fibonaccis were an American art rock band formed in 1981 in Los Angeles. The band consisted of songwriters John Dentino ( keyboards) and Ron Stringer (guitar), Magie Song (vocals), Joe Berardi (drums) and later Tom Corey (bass). Formation Th ...

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fibonaccis, The American experimental musical groups American new wave musical groups Rock music groups from California American art rock groups Musical groups established in 1981 Musical groups disestablished in 1988 Musical groups from Los Angeles Restless Records artists Enigma Records artists