GIGS! SOO MANY GIGS (well err 4)

My mood has been improving tremendously since Tuesday. Getting friends to BURN me whilst I go through my set improved my confidence, I coin rolled in public and performed "The Four Card Trick" in the wild. I felt so confident in myself that when a comedian on-stage asked me my profession I replied "Magician". When I got in from a very fine night of comedy I had a message to ring my magic partner, Harvey. Harvey is the partner I began with, forming "Cane But Able". I now gig with Darren as well (mainly stage work) and we're all pretty much interchangeable. HE had a gig for us! a perfect gig, set in a travelling casino. My mind was suddenly buzzing with  potential, i was intimidated by the gig, even though it' only 3 weeks away, I was excited by it!.  I suppose the most exciting thing was HOW we got the gig.  A person he knows saw me doing tricks at the local Goth club. they were impressed and sought me out through him. My confidence is restoring rapidly.

I shall also be gigging on Monday. Performing magic to 30 children, all of them around 5 years old. I've had to source new balloons for modelling (£10 for 100) and a new magic colouring book. IT feels like i'm buying confidence but I really think these effects are worth the money. Once I can model more balloon creatures I'll raise my rates for kids parties a little to offset the cost. I'll hopefully blog on Monday with a run through of what I intend to perform, and a list to pac,and then blog after the gig to see how it went :)

very rough night

I feel like my soul has been given a good going over with wire wool. Last night me and my magical mates visited a local magic club.  We saw  a few people's tricks as they explained to us some basic coin work before someone broke out their card magic. I felt tonally outclassed. I suddenly felt foolish for believing I was ready to be a professional magician when this guy was trying to show me things that I couldn't ever follow.  I suddenly had to fight the urge to throw magic in all together out of a sense of shame. Then I calmed down. The guy who impressed us the most was VERY good, I over heard the secretary of the club saying he could have won a national competition.  I remembered how people in the club had already praised us for our people handling skills, these are the things that count for a professional magician. Again looking over the effects we saw, the younger guys made a few mistakes and had to restart, so this isn't even material they themselves can perform flawlessly. we were seeing rough work in progress.

So calming down I'm feeling a lot more secure. I KNOW I'm VERY insecure about how good I am at times, so this is just another blip to be over come. TO make me feel more like I know what I'm doing I'm going back to  basics., It's been AGES since I put a new effect on this blog, it's time to stop reading theory  books and to break out some new effects, if just for my benefit, But I'm going to go back to Royal road to Card magic for them, as well as the Mark Wilson course I think. Just to go over some basics.

Full Steam(punk) Ahead!

In the last blog I mentioned  how quickly things are progressing. Well it's not slowing down!
Too begin with

I've been nominated for the magic Circle (as have Darren though through different means)

Darren Harvey and myself have seen Paul Daniels Live. This was VERY exciting indeed. I saw Paul Daniels last year and was blown away with how skill full he was. Since then  He's had a very bad accident involving his hand but you wouldn't  know it at all!.  We enjoyed all of his effects (and The lovely Debbie McGee also performed some very lovely silent acts too) . The chop cup was fantastic as ever but Paul also demonstrated a new torn and restored newspaper that was flawless. A levitation left us all VERY confused as did the classic 2 chair's routine! We got a chance to meet Paul and Debbie afterwards and they were both most charming, a good night was had by all.

Darren and I returned to the Mid Essex Magic Society again this week. We intended to talk to them about joining (we needed to pass an audition of three effects). However they decided to spring the audition on us that night!, I was terrified. As I've said before I've come to rely on Wee Wee Mentalist and could not bring him as I'd lost my black Sharpie which I use to make refills! I can't say how Darren did or what he did (but I heard applause and good reviews afterwards) I set up my deck for "Do as I do" and "Out of this world" . I also had Cartomancy on me as well.  When I walked in and faced my three judges I started to feel like these may not be enough. I opened with Direct Mind reading and followed with  Cartomancy. Two  of the three judges seemed happy but one remained silent,. I decided to use my Ambitious Card routine. After my performance I spoke briefly about where I thought I was in my magical development. They asked about how many performances I've done in the past and seemed happy yo think of me as a seasoned pro. this felt nice. Darren and I both were admited. on feed back the two happy judges said they loved my Ambitious Card. The third judge complimented me on my people handing skills. I asked for where I needed to improve He said simpyl that my confidence in my slights wasn't very high.

Today I spoke to Darren about this. The judge did not say my slights were bad, just my confidence in them was low. So I got Darren to BURN me whilst performing ambitious card right under hi nose. he said every slight worked well apart from the LE Pauls Bluff Pass. this always needs some mis direction so I felt very good about it. After a very good session with Darren we went along to the Colchester Art Center. there Darren managed to score us a proper Stage Magic Gig.  Darren is a seasoned performer and has a good relationship with the venue, without him this simply would not have happened.

So since last blog.
1) nominated for Magic Circle
2)joined Mid Essex Magical Society
3) improved confidence in Ambitious Card
4) got a full on stage gig, just us  lot doing magic
5) getting paperwork sorted to join Equity

overall things are progressing well. I need to improve my confidence in impromptu magic and re-work my routines. I have the books and  dvd's for this, so practise practise and practise. 

So much going on!

This last month has been truly insane. I have visited the Magic Circle twice now and will hopefully blog about that later. The master plan of becoming a full time magician is in full swing and I have to admit that this is more down to others than myself.  My friends and I have formed a Slight Club which meet around my house once a week. The four of us each have our strengths and the idea is for us to motivate ourselves and learn from each other.  Mr. Leopold Thorn himself (or Darren) has been something of a guiding light in this. I have owned a few web space over the years but have struggled to  keep up to date with the best practises for hosting a site. As the owner if Truelove Tours he had recent experience, With the help of a friend of mine he has managed to host our new collective site of http://nothingupoursleeves.co.uk . He was then given a gig for Colchesters Art Centre's Variety night special. He saw an opportunity to  raise awareness of our venture and a chance to help me improve my stage craft.We had under 2 weeks to devise a show and rehearse it. \We used an initial idea for an illusion that Darren had for publicity the Leopolod Thorn gig. Namley the Lazar pointer reveal. When driving home from one of our slight clubs I suggested we could try to make the effect better by allowing the selected playing card to be SIGNED. No mean feat, but the next evening I was demonstrating our first prototype to him. We then  spent an afternoon just shooting out things to say during the effect, be they jokes, smaller tricks or points of science to explain the illusion. Darren then took all these random sound bites and forged a script. I  truly loved working like this. He had an idea of an effect, we both worked together to make it possible, then using my library of books and dvd's to improve on the original, Then we both came out with jokes and lines for the script then he used his skills in stage craft to make the script work. True teamwork.

  To maximise the potential for the gig Darren even got us business cards made (his design which is rather fantastic) using the photos taken at the photo shoot (he arranged). As you can see from this Darren really s the driving force in us turning pro, NEVER under estimate the drive and determination of a man who hates his day job!

The gig went incredibly well. The political jokes we put in for a simple silk colour change went down incredibly well with the politicians in the audience. Darren handled some kids who came into the show half way through very well. I even heard one ask "is that Doctor Who!"  For me the big surprise was how well the effect itself was received. I thought we would be take as a 10 minute comedy act with a bit of magic, however people did LOVE the magic, we were a 10 minute magic act with comedy! The  best thing is we now know what worked well and how to make the show even better. Also a local event manager has taken an interest in is :) so the future s indeed looking bright, mainly due to being given a gentle push by a mate .

http://www.colchesterchronicle.co.uk/2012/03/04/variety-spice-of-sunny-colch/http://www.colchesterchronicle.co.uk/2012/03/04/variety-spice-of-sunny-colch/