Do you remember your first taste of Art?

[jazmunda]

And no I don't literally mean actually tasting the guy. That would be creepy and disgusting and maybe even illegal (in some states).

Do you remember your first ever aural experience of Art Bell and Coast to Coast AM (or it's previous incarnations)? Can you remember where you were and what you were doing? What was the topic? Who was the guest? Were you hooked right away? Any other memories.

I first heard Art whilst driving late at night on my first of many trips from LA to San Fran in May 1996. It was an episode about the Philadelphia Experiment and the guest was a guy called Marshall Barnes. I was hooked right away and the hours that I was listening just flew by and so did the road trip. A week later I made sure that my trip back to LA coincided with Art's show. I believe that the show on the way back was about Chupacabras, which at the time I had never heard of, and if I wasn't already hooked I surely was then. I made a point of listening every night after that much to the detriment of my need for sleep.

The show opened me up to so many topics, fields and ideas that I had never heard of before in any other medium (at the time). Some of these topics have since made their way into pop culture and some have even been exposed to the mainstream through TV and Movies. Sure there were many frauds, charlatans and bs artists on the show but it was all fascinating listening and even if some of the stories tuned out to be fiction I am reminded of a quote from a Stephen King book that goes something like, "It is the tale not he who tells it".

I often found that when I was listening in the car just driving home from the movies or a friends place I would often get home and still be sitting in the car listening because I didn't want to stop listening. I once took a leak in my garden so I could still listen to the radio until there was a commercial break and I could finally go inside and turn on the radio in the house.

Ah. I love trips down memory lane. No other host or radio show has ever had that effect on me.

Art really is one of a kind.

[CampsieNP]

It is so interesting you post this question jazmunda. A few days ago on the AB stream, the December 1st 1995 show was playing. The topic was "angels don't play this Haarp". That was the first AB broadcast I had ever heard. It was a late night and I was driving home from a late dinner party. It was a cold, snowy night. I was alone in the car and as I was getting more and more creeped out, I was totally blown away. I knew this was a broadcaster like none I had ever heard. I was listening on KFIZ out of Fond du lac Wisconsin. I remember everything about that night because of the incredible program I had found. Listening to it again on the AB Stream brought back all the memories. I have been listening ever since. Art Bell is without peer.

[jazmunda]

I also now have both the shows I mentioned in my original post. It was amazing listening to the shows and being transported back to that exact date in time. It really was a form of time travel of the mind.

[Usagi]

I certainly remember mine clearly: Dreamland, December 1997 with Joan Ocean, a dolphin-multidimensional-communicator type. 

I was only 15 and I remember being absolutely floored that a show like this existed.  I sat listening to it with my headphones on while laying in bed.  That people took such topics 'seriously' enough to have a weekly radio show about it... it felt like a a whole other world was opening up.  Previously, I had been a Sightings fanatic, had attempted to wrestle my friends into starting a paranormal research club, and my grandmother had had experiences with UFOs and OBEs, etc.... so I was a bit primed.

Quickly enough, I was hooked to Coast to Coast AM.  Being only 15 on the east coast and having school in the morning, I couldn't listen live often, so I would record it on a cassette tape during the night and listen to it on the bus in the morning and when I could during school.  I remember trying to force my friends to listen while we walked around the track during P.E.  I would dream about being in the desert.  Man, I was a dork.  But I was awesome.

Good times.

Another very important Art-associated memory of mine is my first and only experience with... um... psychedelics.  This was in 2001. Hours after it began and I had quite had my fill of fun, I was good and ready for it to be over. I lay in bed hoping it would wear off soon.  I turned on Art Bell under the mistaken hope that the familiarity would help lull me to sleep, perhaps.  Yeah... it was sounds of Satan (or something along those lines).  Bad idea.


I miss Art!

[PB the Deplorable]

... the hours that I was listening just flew by... I made a point of listening every night... The show opened me up to so many topics, fields and ideas that I had never heard of before in any other medium (at the time)... it was all fascinating listening...

I often found that when I was listening in the car just driving home from the movies or a friends place I would often get home and still be sitting in the car listening because I didn't want to stop listening. I once took a leak in my garden so I could still listen to the radio until there was a commercial break and I could finally go inside and turn on the radio in the house...

Damn that George Noory!

[Eddie Coyle]

 
          The Bookends album. I was on my way to a SDS meeting in Ann Arbor in late '68...

               Oh, you meant Bell. Not Garfunkel. Whoops.

[HorrorRetro]

I don't remember the specific guest, but I started regularly listening to Art back in '93 or maybe '92.  When my husband-to-be and I were going out, we'd stay up most of the night listening to his shows.  For our first Ghost-to-Ghost episode, we stayed up with candles and read scary ghost story books.  We were married in '94 and continued to listen to him until he quit.

[Sardondi]

I'm ashamed to say it was either just about the end of Art's tenure, or just after The Coming Of The Beast. I was recuperating from either a bad fall down some steel-and-concrete stairs, or a an attempt on my life, both of which left me in significant pain, and badly disturbed sleep. I think I remember first hearing Noory. And at first the subject matter blew me away because I'd never heard anything like it. So I soon became a usual late night listener, because I was awake from the pain, and C2C was a unique experience.

Forgive me. I didn't know any better. But sometime around 2004 I heard Art for the first time. The scales fell from my eyes. I had no idea. I didn't realize I had been choking down rotten sow belly which I had been told was filet mignon. When I got a taste of the real thing, it was the beginning of the end for the putrid swine, and a lifetime love affair with the most beautiful cut of prime meat. 

[Falkie2013]

I had a friend who had this huge radio that would pick up am/fm/sw and what was so amazing about it was that he lived in an apartment yet it picked up stations incredibly clear. I wish I knew what he had so I could get one.

Any way, he told me one night while we were sitting and having dinner late about this guy on the radio who talked about ufo's, ghosts and the like.

It was in 1990 ( I think ) when I moved back to the SF Bay Area after being in Sacramento for 10 years.

After one show, I was hooked on AB for life.

There IS no cure for this disease which affects millions.

[Surmo]

My "first time" was driving through New Mexico and Arizona late at night, on business, somewhere around 1995.  I don't even recall the show, and just remembered the voice and the intelligence.  Art was talking to an older, western fellow who was a regular caller, a loner who I recall later got cancer or some illness and died (anyone remember that guy, who lived in Art's neck of the woods, and was also a desert loner?).  It was just a feeling of comfort, listening to the two men talk, like pulling on comfortable clothes that fit just right.


I thought this was some local show (I'm from Michigan), and hated that I couldn't get it.  A couple of years later it popped up in the UP of Michigan, where I loved, and I've rarely known such joy since (a sad commentary on my life, but that's another story).

[Surmo]

[size=78%] A couple of years later it popped up in the UP of Michigan, where I loved, and I've rarely known such joy since (a sad commentary on my life, but that's another story).[/size]





While I love the UP, its where I lived....and where I loved, I suppose, from time to time.


[I need to do a better editing job, but it is 2:25 am.]

[Sardondi]

While I understood immediately that it was a typo, it really was one of those excellent serendipitous moments of synchronicity, or a "no-mistake mistake". Call it a "Freudian non-slip".

[Juan]

In the late 80s, I had a friend who collected DJ air checks on tape.  He played one for me from what I recall as a station just over the border in Mexico, but it could have been California, I guess.  Anyway, it was a guy playing an eclectic mix of 60s, 70s and 80s music who called himself Art Trey (Art Bell, III) and he did "triple spins" - three songs in a row. Then in 1995, I was surprised to hear the same voice hosting a UFO show.

[stevesh]

Summer of '96. Graham Hancock's first appearance for Fingerprints of the Gods.

[Tara]

November 1997, my cousin told me about Art Bell.  I listened, was hooked, and within a few weeks I purchased two Reel Talk tape recorders,  one for work and home.  From the first time I heard Art until the end, I must have listened to 90-95% of his programs.  It made a dull job palatable. 

[Falkie2013]

And no I don't literally mean actually tasting the guy. That would be creepy and disgusting and maybe even illegal (in some states).

Do you remember your first ever aural experience of Art Bell and Coast to Coast AM (or it's previous incarnations)? Can you remember where you were and what you were doing? What was the topic? Who was the guest? Were you hooked right away? Any other memories.

I first heard Art whilst driving late at night on my first of many trips from LA to San Fran in May 1996. It was an episode about the Philadelphia Experiment and the guest was a guy called Marshall Barnes. I was hooked right away and the hours that I was listening just flew by and so did the road trip. A week later I made sure that my trip back to LA coincided with Art's show. I believe that the show on the way back was about Chupacabras, which at the time I had never heard of, and if I wasn't already hooked I surely was then. I made a point of listening every night after that much to the detriment of my need for sleep.

The show opened me up to so many topics, fields and ideas that I had never heard of before in any other medium (at the time). Some of these topics have since made their way into pop culture and some have even been exposed to the mainstream through TV and Movies. Sure there were many frauds, charlatans and bs artists on the show but it was all fascinating listening and even if some of the stories tuned out to be fiction I am reminded of a quote from a Stephen King book that goes something like, "It is the tale not he who tells it".

I often found that when I was listening in the car just driving home from the movies or a friends place I would often get home and still be sitting in the car listening because I didn't want to stop listening. I once took a leak in my garden so I could still listen to the radio until there was a commercial break and I could finally go inside and turn on the radio in the house.

Ah. I love trips down memory lane. No other host or radio show has ever had that effect on me.

Art really is one of a kind.

I can just hear it in my mind.


" Hi all. This is Snoorge Snoory and tonight's guest is I.M. Cannibal and he's here to talk about his new book Cannibalistic Cooking with Turmeric and his second book How To Marinate Former Talk Show Hosts using Turmerlc, "

[ponyboysunset]

I was working 2-11pm, and I came home one night, I want to say it was 1996 or 1997, and turned on the radio because I was bored, and boom, there was Art. I had heard him a few times in high school, when I would sit up late and scan channels on my walkman for new music. But this time I really listened, and began listening most nights after I got out of work. Good memories of that time

[ponyboysunset]

My "first time" was driving through New Mexico and Arizona late at night, on business, somewhere around 1995.  I don't even recall the show, and just remembered the voice and the intelligence.  Art was talking to an older, western fellow who was a regular caller, a loner who I recall later got cancer or some illness and died (anyone remember that guy, who lived in Art's neck of the woods, and was also a desert loner?).  It was just a feeling of comfort, listening to the two men talk, like pulling on comfortable clothes that fit just right.


I thought this was some local show (I'm from Michigan), and hated that I couldn't get it.  A couple of years later it popped up in the UP of Michigan, where I loved, and I've rarely known such joy since (a sad commentary on my life, but that's another story).

I'm from Michigan too. Did you listen on CKLW or 760 am? I used to listen on the Canadian station

[stevesh]

I'm from Michigan too. Did you listen on CKLW or 760 am? I used to listen on the Canadian station

Same here. Mostly I listened on WJIM 1240 from Lansing, but CKLW or WJR often came in better.

[Surmo]

As I was in the UP of Michigan, I usually listened to 1400 AM out of Sault Ste. Marie, that
Windsor, Canada station (800?), but usually WLS.  It shot out across Lake Michigan, and
was the best AM station at night.

[mikealden]

It was a few years ago, actually. I was flipping through the channels and caught the Bob Lazar interview on Somewhere in Time. I remember getting absolutely sucked in and ended up listening to the whole show in my house. After that I found myself severely disappointed that Art only hosted the odd evening, as I didn't really care for Noory.


I'm really jealous of those who got to listen to the show when it originally aired.


Can I ask what the show was like back in the late 80's and early 90's? Did he really cover paranormal topics all that much? I've got all the shows that are widely available on the net, but they only go back to 92 and don't give much of a flavor of what he was like overall.

[somatichypermutation]

It was about 1995 or so and I was a graduate student.  I always had trouble sleeping and was often getting home very late or was going in very early to run experiments that took much longer than a 8 hour day.  I always flipped around the AM dial and overnights were filled with Dr Laura and sports talk.  I am not sure today whether I found Art or he found me when he took the O/N slot on WLS but my favorite part of any Art show has always the first hour when Art was being Art and talking to you like he was sitting next to you in the living room...like a very smart, but slightly warped, family member who you really liked even as you thought they were a bit strange.

[PB the Deplorable]

... I was recuperating from either..., or a an attempt on my life...

You know, this sort of rolled by uncommented on, and I was sure someone would do that or have a question...  Wold you mind expanding on this a little.  I'm not sure where it would go, maybe under 'Things tht annoy you' thread...

[Sardondi]

You know, this sort of rolled by uncommented on, and I was sure someone would do that or have a question...  Wold you mind expanding on this a little.  I'm not sure where it would go, maybe under 'Things tht annoy you' thread...

Not as exciting as it might sound: a guy on crystal meth indulged his road rage one night and finally escalated it to coming after me with a long-handled shovel.

[ponyboysunset]

In several posts people mention listening with headphones to Art, as I usually did as well. I think for me, at least, that is part of the connection. Even listening to new music, or old Art shows, headphones pick up more of the sound, and intimacy of the moment.


The time travel aspect is what is so magical about human memory and it's association with sound. Hearing certain songs takes me right back there in an instant. I wonder if Art knows the affect he has on people, even now.

[Scruff]

My brother was an over-the-road trucker and got into Art back in the 90s.  He came home one weekend and he wanted me to hear a show he bought (back when you could order them on cassette).  We hung out in his truck and listened to the David Adair Area 51 show.  The 90s were a great time for Art.

[VtaGeezer]

It was 1995.  I tuned in KOGO to listen to a ranting precursor to Alex Jones who had a 10PM weeknight program but he had been replaced by a guy named Art Bell broadcasting from his trailer from Pahrump NV and was taking calls about the huge spaceship traveling toward Earth hiding in the shadow of Comet Hale-Bopp.  Best late night radio I'd heard since Larry King followed the exploits of the Enema Bandit in the 70s!

[Eddie Coyle]

Best late night radio I'd heard since Larry King followed the exploits of the Enema Bandit in the 70s!

I learned about him from the Frank Zappa song. I was too young to hear Larry King at that stage(started listening in '82) but that's cool he covered it.

[The General]

Not as exciting as it might sound: a guy on crystal meth indulged his road rage one night and finally escalated it to coming after me with a long-handled shovel.

I don't presume to know what your day to day life is like, but to me that'd be pretty exciting, Bub.

[Sardondi]

I don't presume to know what your day to day life is like, but to me that'd be pretty exciting, Bub.

Heh. When I was younger there was occasionally some broken china.