Everyone knows that the youth of today have been put on and misled by the violent and sexual themes of modern pop culture and contemporary pop music.   However, there are still some listeners  - young as well as old - who search for music they can dig that is soft, romantic and not too loud.   Are you one of them?   If so, you should turn your ear towards the Windy City and then turn on to Chicago's Universe Society, who are currently making sounds that people of all ages have been wanting and needing to groove to - sounds that make you think of flowers blowing in the rainbow wind of a passing candy merry-go-round in a magical springtime.   The band's pleasing style, based on six-part harmonies, is very much a now sound, a today sound, without being too freaky.   They are able to reflect in their breezy songs ideas and subjects that have been lacking in the music scene of today:  like rainbows, flowers, merry-go-rounds, candy, springtime, and love. 

The band, which formed miraculously over a period of time, is made up of four guys and two gals who have combined their unique talents to form a brand-new fresh and exciting whole - and a wholesome whole, at that!   Don't get hung up on the fact that they're goodies, though.  These cats and chicks are aware and hip to what's happening.  It would be a drag if you were to put them into an uptight bag.   If we take a closer look at each one of them, you'll begin to understand how interesting their personalities really are and how they merge together to create the dynamic Universe Society.

Primo Mendoza, the band's leader and main songwriter, started playing the piano when he was 16.  He has spent up to nine years writing some songs, and 20 minutes writing others.  The intense amount of personal conviction he puts into every detail of every arrangement makes every song ride like a colored pony around a glorious carousel, the center of which is alive with the humming sound of a smooth and consistent pleasantness. Primo, who usually thinks and dreams about nothing other than that special sound or special girl, spends a lot of his free time tracking down his musical heroes of times gone by, in order to thank them for the days when he first heard their carnival-like sounds floating through the airwaves like fairy dust, falling gently upon his very selective ears.

Erin Akin, the group's newest addition, is a dancer by training.  She is as flexible with her voicebox as she is with her body. The happiness of Erin's singing pierces through the rainbow that is Universe Society's sound like a jolly lightning bolt through the wind of a summer storm.   Fans can't get enough of her dexterous tambourine playing and the kaleidoscopic rhythm of her jingle-jangle dance moves on the stage.   She also adds her classical piano and Mike Love and Minnie Ripperton-influenced therermin-playing talents to the band.  A hard worker, Erin loves to practice, and can often be heard saying so.  She has the most far-out and least square personality in the band, as she's willing to try anything - within reason, of course!  Erin also has two cats.

Kris Narunatvanich's solid musical sensibility holds the band together with a strength that only lovers holding hands can understand.  The glowing notes of his guitar lines enchant like schools of dolphins communicating in their secret languages.  The technical whiz of the band, Kris is responsible for turning all the knobs and flipping all the switches whose functions the other members just can't seem to understand. But Kris isn't too busy to play his guitar during every spare moment he gets. His favorite place to sit and strum is on top of the old wishing well near his childhood home in Glendale Heights.

The band's drummer, Mark Sciar*ino, started out by playing the trumpet when he was 11 years old.  After his trumpet was stolen two years later, Mark moved on to the bass guitar. From the there, it was only a hop, skip, and jump away from the drumkit, from which his catchy beats bounce like red ribbon helium balloons held down by nothing more than the grip of a joyous child's hand. Mark was the first addition to the band, and his cheerful nature has since brightened many a Universe Society rehearsal.  Aside from the group, Mark's main thing is trying to build flying machines which will help him to escape the imprisonment of the Earth's gravitational pull.

Mike Mason, Universe Society's most versatile member, has returned to the band following a 7-month hiatus.  On guitar, his melodies climb the scales like a wandering mountaineer making his way up a mystical gulch, and his keyboard playing is as tasty and fun as a lollipop. His sonorous vocals amble through the group's arrangements like a nomad in search of a forgotten promised land.  Mike is the most decisive member of the combo, and often is of great help when the band members are unsure whether or not a group choice they have made is the right one.  His hobbies include bird watching, sharpshooting, and cooking.

Lisa P*karek's fast pickin' style and songbird vocals march with the music as if on parade. Like a spring swallow serenading a group of squirrels gathered below in the moonlight, her sweetness really entertains.  Lisa is so confident in her talent and skills that her bandmates look to her for inspiration.  If things aren't going well, she's also the first member of the group to remind the others that there are always brighter times ahead. When Lisa's not busy plucking those strings, smiling, or crying, she enjoys brushing up on her ice skating abilities.

It may seem like Universe Society's light and gentle sound is easy to produce.  Don't be fooled.  The members of the band want to stay modest, so they're tight-lipped about it, but it's said that they practice as many as 10 hours a day, more than several days a week.  The group used to rehearse in an abandoned storefront they were lucky to find, which is typical of the good fortune they have experienced thus far.  It's been rumored that the storefront was once used as a hideout by a super-villain.  The boys and girls of the band painted both the inside and outside bright, wild colors in order to help put them in the right sunshine mood when they're playing music there and to match the dazzling, jazzy clothes they wear.  Since then, they have moved rehearsals to the basement of a 1930's brick bungalow that half the band lives in.   The basement is painted in a pleasing shade of pink.

With their cheerful recordings and zippy live performances having already earned them a solid reputation in both the easy-listening and psychedelic music scenes, aspiring musicians have begun looking to them for guidance.  Their response to requests for advice is: "play music only as a hobby.  There are already too many mediocre acts flooding the market."  These days, an easy sound isn't so easy to achieve.

By now it should be clear that you've been reading about one of the most happening flower-rock love groups around today. Light, soft, fun, happy, mellow, sweet, pretty - if these are the words you use to describe the kind of music you get into, then it's a sure bet that you'll really find Universe Society to be a mind-blowing gas.   The sound that Primo, Erin, Kris, Mike, Mark, and Lisa make when they blend their voices together are blue, orange, green, purple, yellow and red gumdrops in a musical world filled with black jelly beans.  Get together with your friends and listen to their records today and attend one of their shows tonight.  You're sure to have a groovy time.