The Fibonaccis
Encyclopedia
The Fibonaccis were an American art rock
Art rock
Art rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, with influences from art, avant-garde, and classical music. The first usage of the term, according to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, was in 1968. Influenced by the work of The Beatles, most notably their Sgt...

 band formed in 1981 in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

. The band consisted of songwriter John Dentino (keyboards
Keyboard instrument
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...

), Ron Stringer (guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

), Magie Song (vocals
Singing
Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...

), Joe Berardi (drums
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....

) and later Tom Corey (bass
Bass (instrument)
Bass describes musical instruments that produce tones in the low-pitched range. They belong to different families of instruments and can cover a wide range of musical roles...

).

Overview

The Fibonaccis were formed out of the Los Angeles art punk
Art punk
Art punk or avant punk refers to punk rock of an experimental bent, or with connections to art school, the art world, or the avant garde....

 scene which included bands such as Wall of Voodoo
Wall of Voodoo
Wall of Voodoo was an American New Wave group from Los Angeles best known for the 1983 hit "Mexican Radio". The band had a sound that was a fusion of synthesizer-based New Wave music with the spaghetti western soundtrack style of Ennio Morricone.-Formation:...

, Oingo Boingo
Oingo Boingo
Oingo Boingo was an American new wave band. They are best known for their influence on other musicians, their soundtrack contributions and their high energy Halloween concerts. The band was founded in 1972 as The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, a performance art group...

 and Sparks
Sparks (band)
Sparks is an American rock and pop band formed in Los Angeles in 1968 by brothers Ron and Russell Mael , initially under the name Halfnelson...

. Deriving their name from 13th-century mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci and citing musical influence from Nino Rota
Nino Rota
Nino Rota was an Italian composer and academic who is best known for his film scores, notably for the films of Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti...

 and Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone, Grand Officer OMRI, , is an Italian composer and conductor, who wrote music to more than 500 motion pictures and television series, in a career lasting over 50 years. His scores have been included in over 20 award-winning films as well as several symphonic and choral pieces...

, 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
Mandolin
A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...

s, clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

s and Mellotron
Mellotron
The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical, polyphonic tape replay keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. It superseded the Chamberlin Music Master, which was the world's first sample-playback keyboard intended for music...

s. The Fibonaccis' music was nearly impossible to categorize, fusing such disparate elements as post-punk
Post-punk
Post-punk is a rock music movement with its roots in the late 1970s, following on the heels of the initial punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s. The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex and experimental...

, progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...

, jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

, world music
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...

, cabaret
Cabaret
Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...

, ambient
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...

, spoken word
Spoken word
Spoken word is a form of poetry that often uses alliterated prose or verse and occasionally uses metered verse to express social commentary. Traditionally it is in the first person, is from the poet’s point of view and is themed in current events....

 and funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...

, a combination the group often humorously described as "elevator music
Elevator music
Elevator music refers to instrumental arrangements of popular music designed for playing in shopping malls, grocery stores, department stores, telephone systems , cruise ships, airports, doctors' and dentists' offices, and elevators...

 from hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...

". Lyrically, the band regularly explored dark and esoteric subject matter ranging from serial killer
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...

s to UFOs
Unidentified flying object
A term originally coined by the military, an unidentified flying object is an unusual apparent anomaly in the sky that is not readily identifiable to the observer as any known object...

, presented in a satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 and surrealist
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....

 fashion.

Career

The Fibonaccis released their debut EP
Extended play
An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...

 (fi'-bo-na'-chez) in 1982, following up with a 12" single/EP, Tumor, the next year. In 1984, the group independently filmed a music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...

 for an unreleased cover of Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...

s "Purple Haze
Purple Haze
"Purple Haze" is a song written in 1966 and recorded in 1967 by The Jimi Hendrix Experience and released as a single in both the United Kingdom and the United States. It appeared on their 1967 album Are You Experienced...

". 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
Cult
The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...

, book-ended by audio clips from Charles Manson
Charles Manson
Charles Milles Manson is an American criminal who led what became known as the Manson Family, a quasi-commune that arose in California in the late 1960s. He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit the Tate/LaBianca murders carried out by members of the group at his instruction...

 interviews.

By the mid-1980s, The Fibonaccis had emerged as a prominent presence in the Los Angeles art rock scene, 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
New Music America
New Music America was an American festival of experimental or Downtown new music.The festival began at The Kitchen in New York City in 1979. In this first year, the festival was actually called New Music New York....

 festival.

Throughout their career, The Fibonaccis regularly contributed their music to independent film soundtracks. In 1986, the band collaborated with composer Richard Band
Richard Band
Richard Howard Band is a composer of film music. He has scored more than 70 films, including From Beyond, which won the award for Best Original Soundtrack at the Catalonian International Film Festival in Sitges Spain...

 on the score
Film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...

 for the horror-comedy TerrorVision
TerrorVision
TerrorVision is an American horror-comedy film released in 1986.The film was 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 1989...

, recording five tracks including the movie's theme song. Their song "Sergio Leone" was used for the closing credits of 1982's Android
Android (film)
Android is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Aaron Lipstadt and starring Klaus Kinski. The film follows the story of a scientist and his assistant who are working on an illegal android program from their lab on a space station in orbit of the Earth....

and the previously unrecorded track "Art Life" was featured in 1987's Slam Dance
Slam Dance (film)
Slam Dance is a 1987 thriller directed by Wayne Wang and starring Virginia Madsen, Tom Hulce, and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. It was screened out of competition at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.-Plot:A married cartoonist named C.C...

. The Fibonaccis appeared onscreen as the band "Sexy Holiday" in the 1987 comedy Valet Girls
Valet Girls
Valet Girls is a 1987 American comedy film about three women in L.A. who are working as valet girls while trying to get started in the entertainment industry....

, lipsynching to "Slow Beautiful Sex" and "Purple Haze" during a party scene.

In 1987, the band released their sole studio LP
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...

, Civilization and Its Discotheques
Civilization and Its Discotheques
Civilization and Its Discotheques is the sole LP release of Los Angeles art rock band The Fibonaccis, released in 1987 on Blue Yonder Sounds...

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
Restless Records was started in El Segundo, California in 1981 by Enigma Records and primarly released alternative, metal and punk records. Restless also licensed and released records from Bar/None Records, Metal Blade Records and Mute Records...

 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.

Post-Fibs

Following The Fibonaccis' disbandment, John Dentino continued to compose music independently and has recently been working on independent documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

s. Joe Berardi went on to perform and tour with Wall of Voodoo's Stan Ridgway
Stan Ridgway
Stanard 'Stan' Ridgway is an American multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter known for his distinctive voice, dramatic lyrical narratives, and eclectic solo albums and was the original lead singer of the band Wall of Voodoo...

, and has collaborated with artists including Lydia Lunch
Lydia Lunch
Lydia Lunch is an American singer, poet, writer, and actress whose career was spawned by the New York No Wave scene...

, Congo Norvell
Congo Norvell
Congo Norvell is a band led by Kid Congo Powers and Sally Norvell. Congo Norvell formed in 1990 after Powers and Norvell met at the deathbed of a friend in Los Angeles....

, Donovan
Donovan
Donovan Donovan Donovan (born Donovan Philips Leitch (born 10 May 1946) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist. Emerging from the British folk scene, he developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelia, and world music...

 and Rufus Wainwright
Rufus Wainwright
Rufus McGarrigle Wainwright is an American-Canadian singer-songwriter. He has recorded six albums of original music, EPs, and tracks on compilations and film soundtracks.-Early years:...

. Magie Song acted in a number of independent films in the early 1990s, including Gregg Araki
Gregg Araki
Gregg Araki is an American independent filmmaker. He is involved in New Queer Cinema.-Early life:Araki was born in Los Angeles but grew up in Santa Barbara, California...

s The Living End
The Living End (film)
The Living End is a 1992 film by Gregg Araki. Described by some critics as a "gay Thelma and Louise," the film is an early entry in the New Queer Cinema genre. The Living End was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 1992....

and Stephen Sayadian
Stephen Sayadian
Stephen Sayadian, also known as Rinse Dream is a writer, production-designer and director active in the 1980s and 1990s. His films and videoshave a small but rabid cult following throughout the United States and Europe...

s Dr. Caligari
Dr. Caligari (film)
Dr. Caligari is a 1989 cult film by Stephen Sayadian starring Madeleine Reynal, Laura Albert, Gene Zerna, David Parry and Jennifer Balgobin. The film details a disturbed doctor and her illegal experiments on her patients....

, and currently works as an acupuncturist
Acupuncture
Acupuncture is a type of alternative medicine that treats patients by insertion and manipulation of solid, generally thin needles in the body....

 in Los Angeles. Ron Stringer most recently served as film editor and critic for the LA Weekly
LA Weekly
LA Weekly is a free weekly tabloid-sized "alternative weekly" in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1978 by Editor/Publisher Jay Levin and a board of directors that included actor-producer Michael Douglas...

. Tom Corey died from a cerebral aneurysm
Cerebral aneurysm
A cerebral or 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.- Signs and symptoms :...

 in late 2001.

Currently, the entire Fibonaccis discography is out of print
Out of print
Out of print refers to an item, typically a book , but can include any print or visual media or sound recording, that is in the state of no longer being published....

, with Repressed being their only work released on compact disc. In 2006, John Dentino created an official website for the band, releasing the majority of their repertoire for free digital download
Music download
A music download is the transferral of music from an Internet-facing computer or website to a user's local computer. This term encompasses both legal downloads and downloads of copyright material without permission or payment...

.

Band members

  • Magie Song - lead vocals
    Singing
    Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...

    , percussion
  • John Dentino - keyboards
    Keyboard instrument
    A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...

    , piano
    Piano
    The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

    , synthesizer
    Synthesizer
    A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...

    , Mellotron
    Mellotron
    The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical, polyphonic tape replay keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. It superseded the Chamberlin Music Master, which was the world's first sample-playback keyboard intended for music...

    , vocoder
    Vocoder
    A vocoder is an analysis/synthesis system, mostly used for speech. In the encoder, the input is passed through a multiband filter, each band is passed through an envelope follower, and the control signals from the envelope followers are communicated to the decoder...

  • Joe Berardi - drums
    Drum kit
    A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....

    , percussion, vibes
    Vibraphone
    The vibraphone, sometimes called the vibraharp or simply the vibes, is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family....

    , "mortecello
    Cello
    The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...

    "
  • Ron Stringer (formation – 1986) - guitar
    Guitar
    The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

    , bass
    Bass (instrument)
    Bass describes musical instruments that produce tones in the low-pitched range. They belong to different families of instruments and can cover a wide range of musical roles...

    , vocals
  • Tom Corey (1983–1988) - bass, guitar, mandolin
    Mandolin
    A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...

    , vocals

EPs and singles

  • (fi'-bo-na'-chez) (1982, Index Records)
    • 1. "Sergio Leone" (Dentino, Stringer) - 2:12
    • 2. "Somnabulist" (Dentino, Stringer) - 3:03
    • 3. "The Ordinary Women" (Dentino, Wallace Stevens
      Wallace Stevens
      Wallace Stevens 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 a lawyer for the Hartford insurance company in Connecticut.His best-known poems include "Anecdote of the Jar",...

      ) - 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
    Enigma Records was a popular rock and alternative American record label in the 1980s. It was initially a division of Greenworld Distribution, an independent music importer/distributor, which it split-off from in 1985 to become its own company...

    )
    • 1. "Tumor" (The Fibonaccis) - 3:25
    • 2. "Slow Beautiful Sex" (The Fibonaccis) - 2:38
    • 3. "Psycho" (Bernard Herrmann
      Bernard Herrmann
      Bernard Herrmann was an American composer noted for his work in motion pictures.An Academy Award-winner , Herrmann is particularly known for his collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock, most famously Psycho, North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo...

      ) - 3:15
  • TerrorVision: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1986, Restless Records
    Restless Records
    Restless Records was started in El Segundo, California in 1981 by Enigma Records and primarly released alternative, metal and punk records. Restless also licensed and released records from Bar/None Records, Metal Blade Records and Mute Records...

    )
    • 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

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)
    • "Purple Haze
      Purple Haze
      "Purple Haze" is a song written in 1966 and recorded in 1967 by The Jimi Hendrix Experience and released as a single in both the United Kingdom and the United States. It appeared on their 1967 album Are You Experienced...

      " (Jimi Hendrix
      Jimi Hendrix
      James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...

      ) - 3:58
  • The Lives of Lhasa (1984, Lhasa Productions)
    • "Disgusting Man (live)" -
  • Slam Dance
    Slam Dance (film)
    Slam Dance is a 1987 thriller directed by Wayne Wang and starring Virginia Madsen, Tom Hulce, and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. It was screened out of competition at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.-Plot:A married cartoonist named C.C...

    : Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
    (1987, Island Records
    Island Records
    Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group...

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

External links

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