Win all of these!
Drawing on April 1st, 2024
Details

Underground Jam

Jay Sankey

(Based on 2 reviews)
In the spring of 2005 Jay sent out a world-wide request for audition videos featuring original material from unknown magicians. In response, performers from more than a dozen countries submitted more than 200 tapes and DVDs! From this mountain of submissions Jay and his team unanimously selected Joe Diamond, Eric Leclerc and Jeff Stone.

A few months later, Jay, Joe, Eric and Jeff met up in Toronto and over a couple of days taped an outstanding collection of close-up magic and mentalism including 20 effects with matchbooks, coins, playing cards, keys, film canisters, wrist watches, chewing gum, water bottles and magic markers. Here are just a few...

  • UNIQUELY
    The torn corner of a playing card and a marked coin impossibly change places!
  • RAZOR BURN
    A disposable razor visibly transforms into a book of matches!
  • JACKED-UP
    One of the cleanest, tightest color changing deck routines you will ever learn!
  • DREAM VACATION
    An initialed coin vanishes and reappears in a just-examined film canister!
  • STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART
    A marvelously practical "rising card" handling!
  • SHY GUYS
    A super visual, lo-tech "Twisting the Aces" routine. You'll learn it, you'll do it!
  • MAGI
    A sandwich effect with a mind-blowing surprise ending!
  • GREAT SCOTT
    The spectator's signed card appears folded-up under the magicians wrist watch!
  • FINAL CAP IN BOTTLE
    The "last word" on cap-in-water-bottle effects!
  • T-BONE
    A widly visual torn and restored card effect that starts and finishes absolutely clean!

Running Time Approximately 135min

Reviews

David Acer

Official Reviewer

Mar 04, 2009

Over the past decade, the distinction between the words "underground" and "unknown" has become severely blurred by an increasingly liberal definition of the former. Technically, "underground" should refer to people in magic who, as David Drake once put it, "move along beneath the surface of events, quietly affecting and influencing the actions of their more public peers. They are highly respected, often consulted, and genuinely admired by the alert and intelligent in the magic community." None of the participants on this DVD fall into that category (at least not yet), not even my friend Jay Sankey, whose impact on the magic community has been very much overground since the first of his trailblazing material appeared in Richard�s Almanac nearly 30 years ago.

That bit of semantics aside, there are some great tricks on this DVD, including:

  • "Uniquely" (Jay Sankey), wherein an initialed quarter and a corner torn from a chosen card transpose to demonstrate that "objects which are totally unique often have a magical effect on each other."

  • "Razor Burn" (Eric Leclerc), an absurd effect wherein a disposable razor changes instantly into a matchbook, but even though there is little motivation for the change, it looks so freakin' good you'll probably want to try it immediately after learning the work.

  • "Key-Oh-Nee Buh-Lo-Nee" (Jeff Stone), wherein the magician removes the key to his "10 million dollar mansion" from his key chain, has a spectator hold the key chain (and remaining keys) in his hand, then the key vanishes from the magician's hand (both hands are shown empty), only to be found back on the keychain.

  • "Final Cap in Bottle" (Eric Leclerc), a no-gimmick, no-nonsense cap-in-water-bottle that looks great.

  • "T-Bone" (Jay Sankey), an impromptu "quickie" that starts out looking a lot like Card Warp, but ends up being a surprising torn-and-restored card effect.


You'll also learn other fun tricks, and the many useful sleights that make them work, including a basic top change, Ed Marlo's In Lieu of the Thru-the-Fist Flourish, the Mercury Card Fold, a technique for sleeving a packet of cards, a Richard Ross method for ditching a thumbtip (which, incidentally, fooled me), A.T.F.U.S., Brother John Hamman's Flushtration Count, the Ascanio Spread, and more.

Overall, I think this DVD could have been improved by giving viewers an opportunity to see these magicians perform their contributions for real people in a normal (even if casual) setting. As it stands, they only show the tricks to each other, which results in a slightly skewed vibe during the performance segments. But I understand that this is a lecture DVD, not a performance DVD, and with so many original, commercial routines on it, Underground Jam is easy to recommend.

David Acer
(Top ▲)

Gordon Meyer

Official Reviewer

Apr 29, 2007

Watching Underground Jam is like going to an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant. There’s lots of interesting things to sample, some old favorites that you know you’ll enjoy, and a few things you can’t imagine who in the world would even consider. You pay a reasonable price, have some fun, and leave feeling slightly satisfied, if not over-full.

There’s so much on this DVD that Sankey doesn’t even try to list them all in the ad or, unfortunately, on the DVD jacket. By the time I was done watching the disc, which runs over two hours, I wanted to go back and watch a couple of things again, but had a hard time finding the pieces again. The cutesy-clever names don’t help in this regard, either. I suppose there are worse problems to have.

Don’t be confused by the word “underground” in the title. Usually it refers to closely-guarded, new, and often revolutionary material. That’s not really what you’re getting here. Since Sankey doesn’t catalog the entire contents for potential or actual purchasers, I won’t either. But suffice to say that a gamut of card and coins effects are covered, with a few quirky things thrown in for good measure.

The handful of items that Sankey contributes are the best and are better explained, but all of the material has a definite Sankey-esque slant to it. If you’ve read Sankey Unleashed, it’s all very much in the same vein. I mean that in the positive sense that the material is visually interesting and workman-like in approach. But I also mean that in the negative sense that the material is, to twist a phrase, “magic without meaning.”

Don’t get me wrong, despite the uneven sound levels that will have you constantly adjusting the volume, this DVD is a good value. It is often entertaining and will almost certainly give you a few things you’ll sample again. Like the buffet, not a bad way to spend an evening, as long you know when to put down the fork.
(Top ▲)