Back in 2015, three friends—Galen Huckins, Reid Lustig, and Brian Benson—traveled the mighty Mississippi, top to bottom, on a thirty-foot paddlewheel riverboat called the Channel Princess. Along the way, we met dozens of musicians, recorded their songs and stories on the boat’s bow, and incorporated it all into a weekly, serialized radio story, which we wrote, recorded, and broadcast while floating downriver. Though loosely based on our travels, the story was set in a bizarro, post-apocalyptic universe—a “scorched American heartland”—in which quirky survivors huddled on riverbanks and communicated via a mysterious river-based radio signal. You can listen to every episode here.
In the summer of 2025, we set out on another adventure, on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. This time around, we recorded an hour-long, live audiovisual variety show, featuring the musicians, writers, and storytellers we met along the way. You can watch all of those shows here.
Sometime in the next five or ten years, we plan to set out somewhere new and make some more strange riverboat radio. See y’all on the next river!