Ron Stringer, guitar John Dentino, keyboards
Joe Berardi drummer
likeeeeeeeeeee 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).
one more of my Fav band.. ever
The Fibonaccis were formed out of the Los Angeles art punk scene which included bands such as Wall of Voodoo and Oingo Boingo.
Deriving their name from 13th-century mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci and citing musical influence from Nino Rota and Ennio Morricone, 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 mandolins, clarinets and Mellotrons.
The Fibonaccis' music was nearly impossible to categorize, fusing such disparate elements as post-punk, progressive rock, jazz, world music, cabaret, ambient, spoken word and funk, a combination one newspaper critic described as "elevator music from hell".
Lyrically, the band regularly explored dark and esoteric subject matter ranging from serial killers to UFOs, presented in a satirical and surrealist fashion.
In 1984, the group independently filmed a music video for an unreleased cover of Jimi Hendrix ' s "Purple Haze".
Joe Berardi went on to perform and tour with Wall of Voodoo's Stan Ridgway, and has collaborated with artists including Lydia Lunch, Congo Norvell, Donovan and Rufus Wainwright
he 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 festival
Los Angeles, USA
1981–1988 (with a brief return in 1992)
Art-punk alongside Wall of Voodoo and Oingo Boingo
Influences from Nino Rota, Ennio Morricone, Italian film scores
Intricate piano and guitar
Exaggerated, theatrical, sometimes unintelligible vocals
Mandolins, clarinets, Mellotron and other “unlikely” instruments
A mix of post-punk + cabaret + world + spoken word + funk
Esotericism, dark humor, American psychosis, distorted pop culture
Fibonaccis are perfect within my tastes; the band lives in that territory between ritual and absurdity, between punk and cinema, between humor and danger. They are almost a mythological map of the underground Los Angeles of the 80s — a space where music is not just sound, but gesture, mask, performance.
Magie Song – vocals
John Dentino – keyboards
Joe Berardi – drums/percussion
Ron Stringer – guitar/bass (replaced by Tom Corey in 1986)
Fi-Bo-Na-Cheez (1982) – debut, already with the hybrid aesthetic fully formed
Tumor EP (1983)
Civilization and Its Discotheques (1987) – the most “cohesive” and cinematic
Repressed: The Best of The Fibonaccis 1981–1987 (1992) – posthumous compilation
TerrorVision (1986) – collaboration with Richard Band; Five tracks, including the main theme:
“Sergio Leone” – used in the film Android (1982)
“Art Life” – appears in Slam Dance (1987)
Appearance as the fictional band Sexy Holiday in Valet Girls (1987)
Joe Berardi 29-6-2025
one of my fav band The Fibonaccis and, Double Naught Spy Car, and Non Credo.
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 for an unreleased cover of Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze".
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, book-ended by audio clips from Charles Manson interviews.
Magie Song acted in a number of independent films in the early 1990s, including Gregg Araki's The Living End and Stephen Sayadian's Dr. Caligari, and currently works as an acupuncturist in Los Angeles.
Tom Corey died from a cerebral aneurysm in late 2001.
Ron Stringer served as film editor and critic for the LA Weekly and later as an English professor in L.A.'s community colleges.
He died from liver cancer in late 2021
Stringer and Dentino at Tropical Bakery a few years ago
photo by Jon Huck
The Fibonaccis playing “Parting Friends,” a traditional folk song, at Brendan Mullen’s memorial, November 15, 2009.
The Mark Gash Show
Magie Song e Joe Berardi.
RON rip
joe berardi
INTERVIEW with Ron and John - October 30, 1992
by Craig Unkrich
On the evening of October 30, 1992, Craig Unkrich, who kept his own Fibs site up for years, conducted an "interview" (which lasted approximately three hours) with John Dentino and Ron Stringer. It began at Ron's place and ultimately concluded there. At one point they were having dinner in a Korean restaurant near Ron's apartment. Here's an excerpt from the talk over food:
R: I got married, I went on vacation, the [L.A.] Weekly had a job; and I was bummed
J: You had written a pop song and you didn't want to follow through. There are a million reasons why you quit the band and I don't know all of them I know some of them but I've got to say this: I think one of them was that you just didn't feel comfortable with the role of becoming like a singer/songwriter/popstar. Which wouldn't necessarily have happened.
R: I remember it though mostly of being a case of personal stuff. Feeling that I had to get out of the band or you and I wouldn't remain friends. It was looking like that to me. We were real testy, and me probably more than you. I wasn't creating, I wasn't producing. I was slipping in and out and not really participating.
J: Was it because of our troubles?
R: It was because I always felt like a .. fake as a musician.
J: We all felt that
R: Heavy stuff huh? (To Interviewer)
J: I know I did. Fibonaccis gigs. I think over half the gigs were disasters, in terms of performance.
R: How many times did we hear tapes of live shows and just sit in the car cringing.
J: Well, not only musically but in terms of rapport with the audience. We could maybe play them well. But I think that one of the mistakes I know I made was I started to think of it as show business rather than as music. And I was acutely aware that we were lacking in the show business department. And I thought that was a disadvantage that we had. And I'd think to myself after a bad show, where I would say something stupid like "The next song is based on Chris Lasch's "The Culture of Narcissism."
I: I thought that was great.
J: I know but the thing is it more or less fell flat most of the time.
I: I went out and found the book.
J: I know but the point is at least I felt we were not making contact with an audience. Why be up onstage if you're not communicating with an audience.
R: We got good toward the end though.
J: Even with Brynn [Drummer who replaced Joe Berardi for several gigs, including the Pacific-Northwest tour in 1988] on the Seattle tour... remember that gig we played in Portland and it was a pretty empty room like a tavern and we just zipped through the stuff; it felt really good.
R: We were having fun. We were really having fun onstage.
J: Well, as much fun as we were capable of having.
J: That's a great Magie line. I think it actually came from [indiscernable]. Its on one of the tapes where she says "Thank You" at the end of the show: That's about as spontaneous as we get... Goodbye".
Int: One of the things I noticed in the earlier shows is the band seemed very nervous, and never spoke onstage. These were shows I went to. It seemed like the band was a lot more nervous and a lot more concerned about the music and not so much about show business, per se.
R: For my part, I was always ready to fall apart. I had to work my ass off. I had to concentrate, I didn't have any time to be personable onstage. I had no chops at all. I had absolutely no chops. I'd had an electric guitar for six weeks. I had to concentrate like mad. I was trying to play fairly hard stuff [although] I wasn't playing chords.
J: Really, that's just typical of a lot of guitarists. You had higher standards but you were probably a better guitarist the vast majority of [indiscernable]
R: I think a lot of what I went through was unnecessary. I'm not getting down on myself...
I: It was rumoured that you had stage fright during some of the early gigs.
J: That's completely untrue.
R: Utter gossip.
R: There are funny stories about me and stagefright
J: We had to drag him onstage last night. [The Fibonaccis had just play their reunion gig accompanying the release of the retrospective CD, repressed.
R: "I will NOT go down there! I will NOT make a spectacle of myself!"
J: I had to drag him onstage at the Whisky the night we played with Priscilla B. He literally said, "We have no business being on that stage! This is the Whiskey a go go. It has a history. Do you realize what we have to live up to. We don't deserve to be on that stage!" And then the other time, you claimed that you were leaving at the last minute, only to show up onstage finally for that Priscilla show? Even before the Whisky thing, we did some acting in a show that Priscilla wrote at the Olio, and Ron played a bum. A Bowry bum or something. And we were looking for him it was about 15 mins before we went on and I think I found you hiding
R: I was under the stairs
J: Under the stairs, yeah.
R: You talk about the extremes of self-doubt and grandiosity. The fact is that I hid under the stairs and I said "No, I will not go onstage." "No, I will not go onstage." "No. I will not go onstage."
J: "I have no business being onstage."
R: I smoked a joint.. and when my cue came, I ran out and I chewed up the scenery: I took over.
J: Everybody thought he was great.
R: I took over, I actually became an extrovert.
J: What happened though was that your dry mouth and pot made it seem even more like you were a Bowry bum. There was something about the way you spoke.. it wasn't normal, it was like a speech impedement. Plus you probably did some stuttering too, right? So the fact is that he was scared, and at the same time he was going to go through it and he was in perfect character and he was the hit of the afternoon.
