When and How did you discover c2c am?

[Chupacabra]

It was 1994 I was 11 years old, my mother was going through some old pics in her room, she had the radio on with this interesting deep voice, she told me his name was Artbell,  it was sunday night,about 11 pm, it was dreamland, I forgot what the show was about (maybe bigfoot), but it must have been very interesting because iv been listening to the show ever since, mostly archives now.

[Marc.Knight]

I started listening in 1993.  I was working a night shift at the time, and had the opportunity to listen to almost every broadcast.  With radio that good, I found myself almost completely avoiding TV during that period.  Great times and memories. 

Another question could be:  Have you ever called in to the Art Bell Show, or C2C?  I've listened for many years, but never called in.  If I do, I will wait until Art fills in.

[Chupacabra]

Great Memories indeed..

no, I have never called in, partly because of the time difference of where I live. But im not sure why I never called in when I lived in florida, I guess I didnt have any questions at the time, lol

[PhantasticSanShiSan]

mid nineties.  Living in my uncles basement w/ no TV; just books and a clock radio.  I always have to listen to something to help me sleep.  Heard either a dude talking about some wicked crazy x-files shit, or his awesome bumper music.  Whichever it was that I first heard, I was hooked.

[coastfan]

1995. Art Bell talking about sleep paralysis, waking up to some strange entity in your room but you can't move or shout. I was terrified, but hooked. I listened regularly 1995-97, lost track. Didn't realize Art had officially retired until I started paying attention again 2006. Now hooked on archives.

[MV/Liberace!]

i started listening to art in 1994.  i found him because i started listening to rush, and as a result, i was exposed to some of the other gems AM radio had to offer at that time.  actually, there are a lot of people in AM radio who have rush to thank for that, whether they want to or not.


i have called art twice.  both times were when i was a stupid teenager in the 90s.


the first call was perhaps the most douche-chill inspiring of the two.  i called in to ask art if ed dames had ever remote viewed what happened to jimmy hoffa.  why?  i don't know.  i guess i just wanted to be on the air.  what an ass log.  i certainly would like to hear my call all these years later.  i'm sure i would be thoroughly embarrassed.  it was probably in late 1997 or early 1998.  during open lines.


the second time i called was in 1999 during open lines.  it was some time in the second half of 1999.  i called to ask art if he'd ever given any thought to what's going to happen when people begin disposing of all of these millions upon millions of computers that had been purchased during what at that time was the beginning of a home computing boom.  it seemed to me like perhaps it might be something of an ecological disaster, although i don't think i was smart enough to go into that much detail.  i really was a fucking moron.  art didn't seem impressed with the notion.


synopsis:  both of my calls blew goat shaft.

[Stevenqbosell]

I live in L.A.

Hung out with my genius Aunt when I was a kid in the early 90's. She never watched T.V. Only listened to talk radio. The love was sparked.

Fast forward to 1994 - I'm listening to KFI AM 640 here in L.A., listening to a cat named Mr. KFI.

Fast forward to 1997 - KFI lets him go - he goes to KABC, hence becomes Mr. KABC on from 9p - 12a - and then one Friday night, I had no school, was playing Mario kart 64, and heard my 1st Art Bell open lines segment - scrambled to find a tape to record, this guy was talking about Area 51, ghost, etc.

I was hooked.

i'm actually really happy I got to hear Coast during it's Golden period.

What comes from Snoory now blows major chunks. God is he awful.

[MV/Liberace!]

bosell... i know what you're talking about.  during art's prime period back in the mid-late 90s, i was a teenager (born 1979), and boy, what awesome memories.  i really enjoyed that decade.

[awguy]

Hey Mike, you're the same age as I am (1979). I discovered c2c in early 1999 when a station in my area picked up the show. I was hooked immediately. I was always excited to hear that "thump thump thump" of Art's intro at 1:06am (I'm on the East coast). I would fall asleep listening to the first hour of the show. My very first night listening was one of the classics of all time... Sara's near death experience. But interestingly enough, what I remember about that show was his first hour guest. A treehugger who had barricaded himself in a tree to prevent it from being cut down.

In the year before I started listening, I knew that if I flipped around the AM dial at night, there was some pretty weird stuff. Little did I know, that this was all the same show carried on one of many affiliates that I was flipping between. Thank god for the classic shows on Saturday nights, I am able to hear some of those gems from the mid 90's that I missed the first time.

[Stevenqbosell]

bosell... i know what you're talking about.  during art's prime period back in the mid-late 90s, i was a teenager (born 1979), and boy, what awesome memories.  i really enjoyed that decade.

Same here, born in 1981, and those classic years of 1997 - 2002 were something I can't even explain. Every night, you knew there was going to be SOMTHING of interest on Arts show. It really was radio theatre, lol, before I got a girlfriend in high school, much of my recreational time involved Art Bell tapes recorded from the radio, Golden Eye / Perfect Dark on N64, and some "Herbal Essence" LMAO those were the days...

Remember those tapes they tried to sell on the show? "For a cassette copy of this show, send $45.00 to..."

I wonder whatever happened to those unsold cassettes... probably just sitting in a dusty wherehouse somewhere, a goldmine of material...

[MV/Liberace!]

Remember those tapes they tried to sell on the show? "For a cassette copy of this show, send $45.00 to..."

I wonder whatever happened to those unsold cassettes... probably just sitting in a dusty wherehouse somewhere, a goldmine of material...

$45 for a single tape of the show?  and i'm mailing DVDs of my collection to people for $50?  holy crap.  i might have to reevaluate my pricing model.  j/k

[b_dubb]

a friend used to play C2C when i'd hang out at his place.  the shows i remember ...

   Leer talking about the soul collector on the moon
The guy who tried to fly his plane into Area 51
the guy who claimed to have shot two bigfoot

i started listening on my own this summer.  i think if only to distract myself from the oil spill

[Stevenqbosell]

Remember those tapes they tried to sell on the show? "For a cassette copy of this show, send $45.00 to..."

I wonder whatever happened to those unsold cassettes... probably just sitting in a dusty wherehouse somewhere, a goldmine of material...

$45 for a single tape of the show?  and i'm mailing DVDs of my collection to people for $50?  holy crap.  i might have to reevaluate my pricing model.  j/k

Yeah it was ridiculous, I remember being a teenager trying to decide if I should get a Playstation game or get an Art bell cassette; Guess who won out 100% of the time?

I remember when i got my 1st Minidisc in 2000, I was floored by the fact i could record the radio digitally for a little over 2 hours in mono. In 1999 I tried various radio ---> line in on my computer, but the ram and HD space was just so limited back then.

Around 2001 when free MP3 encoders became readily available, all my home recorded cassettes were put on Minidisc. In 2001, finally got decent audio recording software, and archived what i had. 

If Coast wanted my money again, they need to start digitally remastering and releasing all the pre- 2002 Art Bell stuff they have the rights to. Pipe dream, I know,  and I am grateful to the Anomolies page, but there's still some gems they don't have themselves.

[The General]

Remember those tapes they tried to sell on the show? "For a cassette copy of this show, send $45.00 to..."

I wonder whatever happened to those unsold cassettes... probably just sitting in a dusty wherehouse somewhere, a goldmine of material...

They probably just ran off as many as were ordered.  And taped over any surplus.  That would be a great warehouse find, though, if there truly were a bunker full of dusty C2C cassettes.  Maybe Ed Dames can remote view it, and Richard Hoagland can talk about how it's a conspiracy.

[b_dubb]

THEY GOT IT WRONG!!!!

[EvB]

THEY GOT IT WRONG!!!!

hahahahaha!

[ArtBellFan]

I discovered the Art Bell Show in May 1994, it wasn't referred to as Coast in those days, it was "The Art Bell Show" he had his own website and at that time owned the show along with Alan Corbeth.  I have never referred to Coast as Coast..the rest is history.

[ArtBellFan]

Remember those tapes they tried to sell on the show? "For a cassette copy of this show, send $45.00 to..."

I wonder whatever happened to those unsold cassettes... probably just sitting in a dusty wherehouse somewhere, a goldmine of material...

I used order those tapes and they were $20.00 plus shipping and handling not $45.00..

[MV/Liberace!]

Remember those tapes they tried to sell on the show? "For a cassette copy of this show, send $45.00 to..."

I wonder whatever happened to those unsold cassettes... probably just sitting in a dusty wherehouse somewhere, a goldmine of material...

I used order those tapes and they were $20.00 plus shipping and handling not $45.00..

i guess that's a bit more reasonable.

[wvghost49]

My story isn't anything special but here it goes. I cant remember if it was on the internet or a local radio show, around 1999. I remember listening and hearing all these UFO stories. I would lay in the bed at night and fall asleep listening to Art and all the great call-ins. Great memories!

[Stevenqbosell]

Remember those tapes they tried to sell on the show? "For a cassette copy of this show, send $45.00 to..."

I wonder whatever happened to those unsold cassettes... probably just sitting in a dusty wherehouse somewhere, a goldmine of material...

I used order those tapes and they were $20.00 plus shipping and handling not $45.00..

Holy moly, do you happen to still have any of those tapes lying around anywhere?

[Queen]

I started listening to Art Bell because of a teacher I had. I was in my senior  year of high school in 1998. We had to come up with a ghost story. We had to either write one or find one and bring in for halloween, that year. When we turned the paper in he told the class about Art Bell being on at night doing shows like Ghost to Ghost, and if we wanted to listen, what station to put it on. I didnt even know that AM still had stuff on it.

Unlike Mike, I started with Art and found Rush, although Glenn is 100% better then Rush. IMO.

[guildnavigator]

early nineties, probably 1994 and fiddling with a clock radio trying to find something soothing to listen to after TV stopped playing real content and started selling ronco products for the night, and luckily the dial crossed over into a show about feral humans, been listening since.

[ArtBellFan]

I mentioned I discovered Art in 1994, I was driving from Michigan back to Berkeley, CA.  and was on  I-80 in the Nevada Desert looking for something to listen to and there he was, had no clue who he was and listened for about twenty minutes before he said  "this is Art Bell", it was Memorial Day weekend May 30th.  for the next year and half I listened to the Las Vegas station with all the static and fade outs until one night Art said we have a new affiliate, KSFO in San Francisco, from then on loud and clear.

[GuerrillaUnReal]

I've always been extremely interested in the paranormal. Some of the first books I owned as a child were those old Time-Life books on UFOs, Ghosts and the Paranormal (I wish I still had those books, they were great) And once we hit the technological age, I started exploring the internet for info on all the different topics Coast covers. Downloaded a couple of Art's shows in .mp3 on the old napster because of the paranormal tags and got hooked. So I actually discovered Art through the internet through illegal downloads (  ) and didn't even realize Coast to Coast was one of the biggest radio shows or that it was still on in my city for a good long while. Sadly by the time I discover C2C on the radio the show was already winding down and Fumbles was becoming the regular host. To this day, I rarely listen on the radio (unless I'm in the car) and generally stick to just the classic shows.

I've also called in three times to Fumbles back in the day. I don't know why they say it's so hard to get through because I got through every time usually on the first or second call.

[Evil Twin Of Zen]

i have always been a late night radio listener including listening to a SW world radio. as a teen, i would tune in Dr. Demento once a week. in the service, i would listen to the AFARTS late night broadcast of old radio serials. it was the mid 90s when i picked up on Art Bell from a recommend.

[EvZe]

In the mid '90's I was in high school and kept hearing about the AM talk radio revolution and what-not, so decided I should check it out to see what it was all about. So I turned on my radio one night after I went to bed and switched it to the first AM station that came up and it was Art Bell talking about chemtrails and I was like "WTF?! This is what AM talk radio is about?!" Then the next night it was something else quintessential Bell (eventually I figured out that Art was not actually to whom they were referring to when they were talking about the talk radio revolution).

[mib12890]

How did I discover c2c? One night I had been streaming the local radio station's sports program that evening.  I fell asleep laying there and woke up at around 1am with the stream still going on my computer.  I heard some weird music playing("The Chase" song).  I was like what in the world is this?  So I listened and this guy george noory  came on and they were talking about UFOs or something. I didn't get much sleep that night as I listened.  The next day I went to the website, came across this Art Bell character. After I read up on him, and listened to one show I was hooked for good.

Unfortunately I wasn't blessed enough to have listened to coast back when Art hosted full time.  Really wish I would have had the chance.

[RoadDog]

Well, I posted this on Fantastic Forum the other day, but this thread is a good place for it as well. It's long, so bear with me:

Well, how to begin? An interesting question, really, and one I have long wondered the answer of, in the mind of Art Bell, the day he decided to do his first non-mainstream interview. I have my suspicions that the name of this forum section was, oddly enough, not what was on his mind with that decision. A new frontier implies a quantifiable goal, namely arrival, but it's never been about the destination with Art, it's always been about the ride. And keeping your eyes open while you're moving down the road.

Which leads me to me, for a moment, and part of the introduction part of this post. I first "met" Art Bell in the summer of 1996, while hitch-hiking west across America at the tender young age of 21. It was, at that point in my life, becoming a minor obsession of mine, that hitch-hiking I mean, that would eventually lead to years of exploring this fair nation we occupy, but that's a later story.

I was in western Pennsylvania/eastern Ohio on the I-80, on my way to the west coast to meet someone I had met while in Maine a couple of weeks before that, trying to see whales in Bar Harbor.(sadly, a no go, but, que sera) I had been through a lot in life up to that point, and was basically meandering my way through life on autopilot, disheartened and separated from the people around me. My entire world fit on my back, and, in fact, was on said back, and I was ambivalently content with that status.

So, it had been a long day that day, i.e. I had spent a LOT more time waiting for a ride than usual, and it made me decide to break one of my cardinal rules of hitching, namely doing so after dark.(I'm sure the synchronicity of this will become apparent soon) It still, to this day, and after an additional 120,000+/- miles of hitch-hiking and assorted free traveling, still remains one of only two times I ever hitch-hiked after dark.

Well, I was picked up at around true dark, so probably about 9:30 or 10 pm, by a trucker, my first (and oddly enough one of only three in my whole "career") trucker to pick me up. He never did tell me why he picked me up, but I can only imagine that his mind had already been opened to the idea that we are not inherently evil as individuals, despite that being an era of rapidly growing distrust in our neighbors. He wasn't a terribly unique or memorable dude, if not for the result of our meeting. Just a normal guy with a normal job, and normal questions about the world.

After I had loaded up my gear, and we were on the road, I engaged him in conversation, as that is the only currency a transient has at first meeting. The longer you can keep someone interested in you, the further they'll be willing to go. We raced all over the universe in that conversation, and it ended with him asking me at some point if I ever listened to that Coast to Coast show on AM radio. I replied with a disinterested no, as I had never been a fan of talk radio. His reply was pointedly sure.

"I bet you'd dig it man" and he winked at me. "I'll have it on the radio in a minute here, so if you don't mind, you can sleep on the bunk back there." That was a dual statement for me, as I hadn't even gotten to asking him how far he was going, so he was telling me that he was going to take me far basically. That eased my head alot, and salved the ire of the long waits that day.

I thanked him, and told him that if he didn't care, I was just going to go lay down then. He told me to go for it, and clicked on the radio. Just as I was starting to fade from consciousness, that voice came on the air... that voice just oozing a sense of "wait, don't go to sleep yet, you just GOTTA hear about this!"

It wasn't even the subject matter that grabbed me at first, though it definitely made my eyelids open, as all those era's subjects were wont to do, for all their freshness and unconventionality. Sadly, I don't even remember who he was talking to that night, but I do remember that he struck me as decidedly different in his approach to who he was dealing with on the air. He was improvising.

I know, GASP!, but I just wasn't used to that in media. As the night went on, I couldn't even pretend I was going to sleep, as it was a nonstop romp through the sociopolitiscipsypsiscape, and to keep up with Art was a battle, and I do, quite vainly so, feel I'm a fairly quick guy. His gift for asking the right question to get a real answer was evident immediately, and his diligence in rephrasing a question fifteen different ways to deal with slippery answers was superhuman.

And that was just the open lines. Had I known, that first epiphanic exposure, that Art didn't screen his calls, I wouldn't have missed an episode ever again. I didn't figure that out for months actually, but I was still intrigued to the point of considering settling in one spot just so I could be up at 4 am. Fleetingly, yes, but I did think about it for a few moments.

Now, let us go back to me again for another moment, and why I decided to post this here, and further, why I joined this site in the first place. The reason that first show was such a huge impact on me ties directly to my world view at the time, and my displeasure, if not outright animosity, toward humanity in general. At the time, I was decidedly part of the doom and gloom club, with a decidedly apocalyptic view of humanity's chance to survive its self.

I was quite sure that there was, absolutely, not a single outlet for any of the real news, or even consideration of unconventional ideas. The internet was still really just a dream for geeks to play with, and not quite the unchained behemoth it has become now, so not the double edged sword of information distribution it currently brandishes at societies throat.

All of that changed within just a few minutes of hearing the show, from the advertisers, to the wide array of random subjects zoomed past, to the savvy Art had with others, to the bumper music, to the fact that it was coming all the way from across the country. All these things, and just a gut feeling of assurance, hooked me from that moment, and did something I had not had till that point in my adult life.

It gave me hope. Hope that there was an outlet for those strange voices from the fringe, that while no Dan Rather, still bore the weight of integrity on their shoulders, and were able to get that view out there to the common folk. In fact, I considered it, almost instantly, to be one of the last bastions of that integrity.

Now, I can't claim that listening to Art Bell made me a better person, nor did it tangibly improve my life, but, it opened the door to an idea. The idea that, while few may listen at the outset, there are ears for any voice. And if you are willing to stand by that belief, and provide a platform for others to give voice to their findings, beliefs, suppositions, hopes, dreams, fears, and all the shades of gray between these things, you can change the world from your living room.

Finally, to the point, I can only hope Mr. Bell gets a chance to read this, but should he not read it here, the universe will let him know one way or the other.

Thank you sir. From that first night, you captivated me and my imagination. You showed me that humility need not be cowardly, and that evidence is not always truth. You have taught me the true value of REAL skepticism, not blindly accepting any tale that vaguely fits the story. Thank you for teaching the real world application of the scientific method, and the responsibility that knowledge comes tied to. Thank you for showing me that all evidence is proof of something, even if we don't know what that something is, yet. For all the memories, and all the wisdom, for the joys and the tears, the scares and elation, the cooperation and the solidarity, thank you.

It is a great tragedy that I only found this site the day it seems that you have finally hung up your microphone, and then too, because it seems that the magic that drew me into the night with you is fading. Just know that great things have been done as a result of your impact, and if you ever question any of it, you need merely think about the millions of minds, that carry on around the world, that are open to the future, the past and the now.

It seems silly to me, but even as I finish this post, I find tears in my eyes at the thought of only hearing the "then" you from now on. But, at some point, life always leads us in the direction we were meant to go, and I'm sure you know it, my friend. That is my final thanks to you Mr. Bell.

Thank you for being my friend.

Sincerely,
A Kindred Spirit

[ArtBellFan]

Hi Roaddog, I read your great post a few days ago, thanks for posting it here..

Welcome