355: Bill Smith - The Man Behind the Illusions

Former Long Beach Mystic, Bill Smith, has been a long time resident on Las Vegas and doesn't consider himself as a creator so much as he is a builder. He has seen a lot of magicians come and go. For ten years, he was a stage hand for Harry Blackstone, Jr. and traveled across the U.S. including his Broadway show. He also has some strong beliefs on building from original plans rather than building rip-offs.

As part of the Las Vegas Chronicles, one of the visits was to the illusion fabrication warehouse of Bill Smith's Magic Ventures where his crew was busy building props for upcoming shows. For more info on Magic Ventures, visit his website at: http://www.magicventures.com/

To hear our chat with Bill Smith, visit: https://www.themagicwordpodcast.com/scottwellsmagic/bill-smith

Bill Smith talks about his migration to "Sin City" as magic began to flourish. He talks about magic he has been involved with from Caesar's Magic Kingdom to the current big shows on the Strip. He also talks about working with Stan Allen in the magic shop in Los Angeles and his early attempts at building. Bill started out as a performer and gradually moved into building. He also chats about how he met Harry Blackstone, Jr. and how he starting working for him including a lot of behind-the-scene stories with Harry. Some of Bill's best memories are from his attendance at Abbott's Get Together.

We then have a good discussion about rip-offs of illusions, ethics, rights, YouTube, China, lack of creativity, and more. He now laments the lack of new, original illusions coming on the market today.

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266: Wizard Wars Woman - Billy Kidd

Billy Kidd is a force to be reckoned with. She is a street magician (with a straight jacket escape as her signature trick), but she is best known to the general magic community as one of the Wizards on the SyFy television series "Wizard Wars" (produced by Rick Lax) in the second season. Born in Canada, she now resides in Bath Spa, England with Gazzo. So now you see her connection with street magic.

She actually came into magic later in life than most male magicians who generally get interested in their adolescent years. Billy was 21 when she first saw and was influenced by a stage magician. As a drama major in college, she was already involved with and had a passion for theatre. But she saw the potential of being her own person as a street performer and creating her own stage wherever she was. She met Gazzo who took her under his wing and mentored her in the ways of the street and, well...the dominoes fell.

Street Magician, NIck Nickolas, was the inspiration for Billy Kidd. You can get a sense of his style in this video. You can learn more about Nick at www.nicknickolas.com

Billy traveled with Gazzo on his recent lecture tour of the U.S. and stopped by as my house guest. I talked with Gazzo on a podcast with the intent of bringing over Billy to chat, too; however, Gazzo had so much to talk about that it filled the hour. I felt that Billy would have enough to fill another hour talking about her experiences as a female magician in our male dominated art and the challenges for a woman magician on the street.

I was not wrong.

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Not just a good read for the holidays, but a great read anytime with wonderful stories about magicians and Steve Spill's magical life.

264: Street Talk from Gazzo

With literally tens of thousands of performances over his lifetime, Gazzo is one of the world's best street performers. Don't just take my word for it. On multiple occasions he has taken top honors at street festivals as the "best" street performer. Gazzo resides in Bath Spa, England, but as a globe-trotter, he is really a citizen of the world.

During a recent nationwide lecture tour across the U.S., Gazzo stopped by Houston and visited my home to record a chat. Gazzo talked about his philosophy of life, working the streets around the world, differences (or lack of differences) in appreciating verbal humor among other cultures and non-English speaking audiences, and much more.

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