it was a nice read and I will definitely be sharing this with others.

Geez, talk about damning with faint praise. This guy is clearly an old fogey way out of his comfort zone. Susanville is a great concept (each song is a different person on the highway), the songwriting is brilliant, they are head and shoulders above their contemporaries.

Well, thanks for sticking up for us, Pat. I'm glad that at least a couple of tracks made it to Rick's iPod. (In fact, he chose some of my favorites.)

'Susanville' is not the musical equivalent of a novel: It's more like a series of short stories, or vignettes. Each song tells the story of different people along America's highways and byways.

We don't expect every listener to "get" 'Susanville' on the first go-round. The songs may require some active thought on the listener's part, but in our opinion, that is a main criterion of good art.

I urge Rick and his readers to spend some time with the the liner notes and music of 'Susanville' in order to come to know the album a little better. I hope they'll come to understand that every single song and linking bit does indeed pertain to the stated theme that 'every car on the highway has a story.'

We take our lyrics VERY seriously, and some of these songs literally took years to write. Every syllable is carefully thought-out and chosen for a reason. Completing a rhyme scheme is the last thing we care about.

I hope that active and intelligent listeners out there will take this as a challenge to buy a physical copy of the cd and decide for themselves whether the music and lyrics have substance. Without the liner notes and accompanying map of the songs, a download is not going to give you the full experience -- I can guarantee.

Sincerely,
Brandi Hart