Paul Fowler & Kev G talk Cubeify! #172

Four, three, two, one, zero.

They're guys. They do magic. They are the Magic Guys. Hello, friends, and welcome to the Magic Guys podcast, episode 172. I'm your host, Nick Kay, and joining me a little later on will be our good friend Josh Nobito. But fear not, not we have two amazing guests this week all the way from the uk if you're wondering where that is.

That's where all their convicts came from that then came to my country in australia and then they got really upset about it they were like hey man this is kind of nice you got beaches here why are we sending out convicts and it's very funny so joining me our two very pale brothers from across the pond mr paul fowler and kev g make some noise friends hey thanks for having me man it's really good to have you back buddy please for the ones who haven't met you before tell

us who you are paul fowler yeah so i'm paul fowler i'm a full-time professional magician from the uk and specializing in corporate events and trade shows and i also over the last kind of couple years have had a few product releases as well some amazing products some of my favorites and of course joining us our new friend mr kev g kev tell us who you are friend hey how you doing yeah i'm i'm kev i'm from leicestershire in the uk i do magic part-time so i do weddings

and parties and stuff for the weekends other than that i'm a full-time secondary school teacher and i've had a number of releases out to magic community It was from like 2016, I think was my first one. So...

Yeah that's that's that's a roundup of me yeah that's awesome in fact so kev it's it's really exciting when we always make new friends in the podcast and you would sort of make mention that you came from a magic competition before you arrived is that correct yeah yeah i was just over at magic competition in my nearest magic club which is coventry magic society so i had a good time uh taking part and i was there judging the parlor competition which was always fun wonderful and

how is the talent as far as from the judges perspective and what are you judging them on is my first question yeah it was really good it was a good mix and i think the categories from memory there was a skill uh you're testing me now to entertainment and i can't remember the third i was mainly like i was mainly like making notes and then and then i did all the scoring afterwards but but yeah it was good there was some some really good acts which had some good i always like to have see an

act that's got like a theme to it so there's like a thread running through all of the effects and yeah definitely some ideas that could like grow into something a bit bigger from what they were so yeah i really enjoyed watching that and and taking part and making some notes that's wicked well gentlemen thank you both for being here and as well as thanking you fine people for being here we want to thank our guests who are joining us here live Live in the chat, we have Thomas, Gary.

We have Caden, Tim Maskin, House to the End, Scotty Link. Thank you all for being here. Now, guys, don't be afraid to shoot your questions through the chat. Of course, we'll ask both Kev and our good friend Paul what they all are.

But first, gentlemen, speaking of releases, which you've been doing since 2016, Kev, that's amazing. And Paul, I actually own quite a few of your releases, which I absolutely adore. I'm most excited about your new one coming out, which is Cubify. Can we please talk about that a little bit? Yeah, let's talk about Cubify. So yeah, Kev, you do the honors, mate. I don't want to talk too much. You do it. You do it.

Sure. So basically what Cubify is, is we've taken a Rubik's Cube and you've probably seen that you can get like Sudoku cubes with numbers on and picture cubes. But what Cubify is, is a cube with letters on. So I've actually got one just here I can show you. So it's a cube which has got letters on. The idea being that it's a little bit like Scrabble in that the more that you mix up the cube, the more different combinations around the different words and stuff you can get on the cube.

So Cubify is a revelation system whereby you can have a celebrity selected and you can do a revelation on the cube. But it's not just like a one trick thing. There's multiple phases in it so you can do multiple things with it or you can have multiple selections. And it's just a really nice way to be able to connect cube magic to an audience where you're you're you're linking into music as well as like sort of like the hook to it. So, yeah, yeah, that's it in a nutshell. Yeah.

And it's like the there's there's lots of different routines and things you can do with it. As Kev was saying, one of the things I love to do with it, I think Kev does as well, is you sort of you introduce the cube as kind of what it is.

Use the uh the letters as kind of a tool to help you learn the positions that the squares need to be to solve it and then you practice to a song and then the idea is by the end of that song you want to be solving the cube so the idea is you try and link it in with the music in the cube and it's just very fun to perform but probably well one of the most if not the easiest cube thing you will perform right kevin i mean it's super simple and i mean my my cube magic is

okay it's limited i mean i'm not a massive cubing enthusiast but you know i've got the experience of solving a cube and some cube routines like matching effects and i've played around with the gimmicks over the years and i've been doing it year for years rubik's cube routines but kev is what you would call a rubik cube enthusiast he's a magician but he's also very very clever with Rubik's Cube as well. So yeah, he's a genius, put it that way.

So what I'm sort of curious about is with the letters on it, for me, I'm an okay cube guy myself, but a part of me makes it feel like it's a little daunting having all those letters on it. Is that stupid of me to think like that? It's like, no, man, it's exactly what it's supposed to be. Don't be frightened of it because it's got letters on it. Because I generally look at it and go like, that looks too perplexing for me.

Yeah definitely but i think that's the the nice thing about it because it feels like it's even more impossible than just doing a rubik's cube when in fact that is there's no difference and in order to do the the whole effect you've just got to learn four moves that's all you've got to learn and you can do all of the revelations or like you can do the whole thing you can do the whole routine and to be honest you could do it without even knowing how to solve rubik's cube so it's really

simple but the thing about it is that it looks like it's impossible which is what kind of sells it i think yeah and although it doesn't really make any difference to what you're doing you you use the fact that letters are on there that make it more challenging you're not only having to move the letters and the pieces right you're actually physically having to orientate the letters right as well so then it adds this extra layer of apparent impossibility to what

you're doing when in theory it means nothing to to us as magicians but you know we get that extra kick of people going oh man that you know that that looks impossible it generally does like it looks far more perplexing just because there's letters on it when in actual fact if you look past that it's just a cube and and we need to be frightened of it as performers correct.

100 and i think what i get and the other thing that sells it is that when you look at the cube all of the letters are in like a different orientation. So it kind of feels like, oh, it's even harder, not just to get the letters on the right side, but to get them in the correct orientation. So obviously there's loads of solutions to this. So you'll see on this side of the cube, I've actually got the word solutions. That's great. And you'll see, and this is how the revelations work.

All of the letters are in the correct orientation. So they're really clear and easy for anybody to see.

And just by doing four moves, that allows you to reveal magicians, for example, right? But we're not on the magicians podcast. We're on the magic guys podcast. Hey, look at that. Oh, snap. There he was in the pre-interview saying that nothing was set. You know, it's always a surprise. We haven't got anything special planned. No, there he goes. Pulls that out of the bag.

But this is the thing. once you've got cubify and obviously the way that we teach to set it up is for the revelations that, link to the routine but once you know the sort of concept you can customize it if you want so if you've got a corporate gig for a specific client and you know who you're going to you could you could customize it and set it up for those so there's lots of other possibilities with it as well that's deeply exciting knowing that you can customize it to

that extent because anything we you can promote a little message in the cube is such a good idea like even if you were just i'm just spitballing an idea as we do a lot on the podcast where you could do something as simple as.

Talk about trying to solve problems and then you do it and then not only is it it looks like it's solved but it's not solved and you actually read the letters and the letters actually have a revelation like that would play so big to camera in a situation like that that's wonderful what i'm curious about though is why did you guys choose to go down the musical routes when first release in this now is does it come set up for the music realm and then you can customize it afterwards so the

so really we talk about how we kind of came up with it and then we can kind of get to where the i think the music side came from so during during covid i was i think i said in the last time i was doing a lot of virtual shows and i i used to like a virtual cube matching effect which sounds like how is that possible but it was actually quite good right it was it was all right it and then i had like a corporate client rebook for another 60 minute show like two

weeks later and i was like i've just i've done my show like how can i come up with something else so i found a time it was a stickless cube and i had this idea of using digital force bag by nick einhorn craig squires and basically being able to get things chosen by the people watching and i wanted.

To try and link it to a cube and I'd purchased one of Kev's products years ago called Cube Cards which was from Saturn Magic and it's still available I believe and he taught essentially an early version of this system but I really liked it because it.

It only needed a couple couple of moves to do it and the same moves in and out of what what it basically is i don't know how much we're kind of revealing on here what it is but i'm sure people will start to realize what this is as we talk or what part of the method is and i i kind of did it with celebrities and i thought oh that's a really really nice idea and it got a really good reaction, and i just had two celebrities it was jim carrey and tom cruise and i remember

shooting a video and sending it to kev saying look i've got this idea with uh your thing that you teach on cube cards, and he went to me i goes i think there might already be something out like it and there was but it was it was done with like images like mosaic tiles and that so it wasn't quite the same and we kind of didn't talk about it for years and i saw kev at the magic circle years later and i said i think there's still something in that i think we can really build it into

something else but I need you on board because it's your based on your idea and I think that we can make it into something, much better than what I originally thought it was going to be and that's what we did, a lot of going back and forwards, a lot of, late nights and sort of.

Yeah rehearsing and coming out and changing things and we got to where we are with it but again the whole music thing just seemed to fit with it or we really like the idea of linking the branding of like spotify and cubify and having the music idea and it just seemed that.

You know songs and music connect to people in a certain way and you you'd find that when you when you start performing cubify that people connect to it because you're not dealing with you know random information these are songs and artists that you know hold bearing i guess over people's lives so uh so yeah that's a really long-winded answer i told you if i start nick i won't stop no it's great because it actually leads me to think that this has been around or conceptualized for many years so

how long has it been before it's gotten to where it is now oh it's literally like 2020 or something was it yeah it was it was 2020 i think when paul sent me the original video with the two revelations and when I first saw it I was I liked I liked the idea of it but for me I was like oh I just wanted more out of it and just with those two revelations and there was there was something with the pictures on I kind of thought I didn't

really know where to go with it so we didn't mean it wasn't mentioned as Paul said for years and then I caught with Paul at the magic circle he reminded me about it I was like oh do you know what let me go and have another look at this and then I thought there's a few there's a few sort of parameters I wanted to put in that was working towards which was I wanted to be able to get as many possible as many reveals possible using the cube but there was a couple of restrictions because.

Because of like the positions on the the cube you've got like these nine squares right and I. Yeah and i've got positions on there you've got these nine squares so that's actually a really difficult restriction because now you can only have revelations which fit into nine letters if you want them to be on one side right so i've got this absolutely huge spreadsheet which contains well and i had countries australia yeah and i'm sure there's a couple of other things linked to

australia and then i had um celebrities so it was like actors there was singers the sports people i've got hundreds and hundreds right but the one that seemed to fit in with the system and and when i say the system is the way that is designed is that i've had to recycle some of the letters so those letters had to be in the exact right position for a different revelation.

But the the letters also have to be in the correct orientation i hope that makes sense it makes perfect sense yeah so for example like magic the letter g is in the third position so if you if you can have multiple words with the with the g in the third position then you have more opportunities to do more revelations sort of but when you mix a cube the g won't necessarily that g for your example wouldn't necessarily stay in the third position it might then go in the eighth position

for example right so then the word has to the revelation has to fit into that this is because i wanted to have multiple revelations and i think initially there was five.

Celebrities and we settled on so there's four key celebrities but then there's also one of the tracks can be revealed on the cube there's also then another additional couple of revelations which link into a gag to do with kanye west but then all of the other revelations are built into the box so you get like a custom design box with the effect as well so after you've done the revelation of the celebrity you can then do a revelation of

the trap or the song on on the box as well or on the cube and then you can finish with a soul of the cube as well so there's loads of stuff that's been built into it to make it so it's like a whole routine now rather than just just like a fleeting, like one-off little effect. Yeah, and to answer your question, Nick, earlier on, so when you get Cubify, it comes flat-packed, and you don't get a cube with it.

And the reason we decided on that was that at this point, in most magicians' careers or lives, you know, Rubik's Cube stuff's been around a while. And although this is very different, a lot of people have got their cube now that they like to use. So we didn't want to make it restrictive. So what you get is you get a set of stickers with it.

They're black kev seems to have got the only limited edition gold version there that's like the golden boy version all right that nobody else gets that version other than kev so he's showing that off even i haven't got that version all right so i've got you get you get black stickers and they're i kind of got this embossed look so when you put them on the cube it generally looks like almost like the cubes have been made specially they look really really nice so you get the stickers with

it you get the box which kev was saying which aids as the revelations if you as as part of some of the routines and you also get this sort of sticker sheet as well that you can build the box out of paper if you want to and it just helps with setting up the cube to make it easier so i mean all in all if you sit down and do it it's probably going to take 10 minutes 15 minutes max to sticker up a cube and once it's done it's done but the beautiful

thing is you could use you know the henry harris's cubes right the rubik's dream cubes if you wanted to i'll stick it up a couple of those before but i now use a speed cube which is a diane zanchi thanks kev for that one and i uh and but you can you can use whichever cube you want so it's it's all good.

You guys i was thinking that myself that i i've got the harry s cubes cubes myself and i thought how do i introduce a cube if it's going to look not unlike the one that kev put up a moment ago on the screen which has that many black borders around that and i thought wow but now but actually for me it's actually more more appealing like you said to just be able to gimmick up my own cubes and be able to do that yeah you said that you can get multiple

revelations i mean i can only assume there's six but i'm curious kev like what's the most amount of revelations you can get out of this particular gimmick well as i said on the on the cube for cubify there are six i think the six full faces that can have a revelation on.

But potentially the dependent on what word you're using you potentially potentially get more but it's not like it's difficult to explain but it's it's not like you're like doing our revelation that side of revelation that side of revelation that side you know it doesn't necessarily work like that but i i don't know like i kind of just was working within the framework that i'd set the system up and that that was kind of like the most i could get out

of it yeah yes you get you get the four celebrities that are built into the system that you can reveal on the cube and then each of those those artists will say so music artists you could also reveal a track or multiple tracks that they've uh they've put out whether that be on the box or on the cube itself and then there's a couple of revelations that you know that are built into it and there's a you know we the thing that

was really good and we were happy with was that the four that we managed to get out of the system are really well-known celebs. So let's say you've got a young, trendy crowd. A bit like you, Nick, yeah? A young, trendy crowd. You're kind of people, right? And you're going to go for something like an Ed Sheeran reveal or something like that. Right. Okay, but let's say you're doing a wedding and you've got a bit of an older crowd, right?

Okay, Ed Sheeran, although very, very popular, because it might not be necessarily the best reveal for them. You've got people like Elton John on there as well that you can reveal. You can then reveal one of his tracks, Rocket Man. And there's lots of lovely little bits. I'm biased, but there's lots of lovely little bits built into it like that.

And you can go whichever way you want. You can do a full multi-revelation routine if you wanted to, but the idea is you can also do it from group to group or table hopping because you've got the option of different revelations. That's cool. And as far as this selection process, I guess all the routines would be covered.

And I think you also have full routines online, correct? Showing a few different ideas. How many routines do you get along with the actual project? Yes.

So you get a regards to routines what do we do we go through single revelation routine don't we and we go through multiple revelation routine and then we just talk about ideas as well about how you can make it bigger so you could do it in a cabaret sort of parlor type setting if you had you know video relay and and stuff like that so that yeah there's a there's a there's a few different things you you can do with it and it just it it can it combines cube magic with mentalism you know which

is uh i think the really interesting side of it and that's when we showed it to other magicians you know we had the likes of like mark spellman get quite excited by it because being a mentalist you know i've never think in a million years he'd be interested in a rubik's cube trick but the fact that it's combining rubik's cube and mentalism he loves it you know and very nicely gave us a um you know a quote on it as well so yeah am i missing anything there kev have we got the project

is like two and a half hours long it was a long day in the studio with kev all right no one should have to spend that much time with kev no it was actually it was actually a pleasure to work with kev i must admit and he was highly efficient at all times i probably wasn't so kev was actually better but no it was yeah i don't know kev if i missed something there or not no i don't think but i was just going to mention in terms of the cues because

i was always like if i'm doing magic with with a cube it has to be a blackboarded cube right.

With sticks on because that's the most well-known one but for this you obviously you can use a blackboard cube but i think if you're using a stickless cube like this i think in this instance that's okay because this is not like a normal rubik's cube this is it's a bit weird anyway isn't it you've got these letters on and and i think the ones that you would buy from a shop maybe wouldn't be blackboarded they'd they'd be stickered like this so i think in that instance,

it's absolutely fine and that's like justified did you did you say to me kev as well that all All Rubik's Cubes now are stickerless, aren't they? Anyway, or they've made them look like they've got stickers on, but they haven't actually got stickers.

They're they're they're being they're being phased out so because like there's like this cubing community where people are sort of like doing speed cubing they're they're going for the stickerless ones now so a lot of the big manufacturers have actually stopped doing any of the cubes with the black borders they're all just going stickerless now so it's it's increasingly difficult to find them yeah and the uh the selection process as well sorry nick just the selection process,

I think you mentioned it briefly then as well, of how we get certain celebrities chosen. They're all covered on there. We've got organic ways of doing it with the mobile phone. So literally all you have to do is take out your mobile phone and the cube and you're good to go. We've got ways of doing it with cards, business cards, simple stuff. It's all covered. It all looks kosher and you're ready to create miracles.

I'm actually really excited about it And now the more we sort of talk about it, and I think that a good friend, Josh, probably has a few questions. Let's welcome him into the chat. Yo, what's up everyone? Sorry, I'm late. I was at the petrol station. They would not accept my credit card for some reason. They were like, that's not platinum. I'm like, it is platinum. And then they took my money. And then I was like, I can't believe that these guys stole my idea because I have a cube.

And if I solve it, check this out. We don't just have any guests on today doing fube stuff. We have Kev G on here. And I was like, these guys already got my ideas. This is crazy. So that's why I'm late. Good to see you, man. Good to see you guys too. Thank you for being here. And I trust Nick has danced for you so far. I've been brutal. Absolutely brutal. Good stuff. No, I've been, what's funny is I've, while I haven't been on the pod yet, I was listening to it the whole time.

And the stuff you guys were talking about was really interesting about about cubify and the fact that you can thank you for using the magic guys by the way on your cube that's awesome we'll pay later and but that i think that was the selling factor for me just then like i always thought i would i would obtain cubify but the fact that you can customize it per event is like the the drop of the hat right like because like you can't

customize a regular cube for an event But you can if there's a revelation. Well, let me say to your point that like a lot of times I've thought about doing it, but then you'd have to do an entire mosaic. And that is such a laborious thing to do. And like, no, I don't want to do that.

The fact that you basically have like the notion of being able to achieve something that's as mind-blowing as a mosaic in which you have, you know, 10 cubes by 10 cubes and you have to like carry all that, like the logistics of that would be a nightmare.

Now I kind of feel like you have the same sort of response or experience when you see that like the woman fuzzies you get from seeing the magic guys written on a cube like that's exciting man like I enjoyed that you know, yeah it's good i wasn't expecting that either you know so he's uh he's a man of mystery kev and he uh he's ready to go yeah yeah absolutely and you think if you're just gonna customize it for um a client let's say you're working for like who would josh work for google.

Well let's choose somewhere like starbucks because that's nine letters and that works hey there you go yeah yeah you literally only have to you know do that if you want to do that revelation and then just you know put other stuff around it as well so it's very very simple to do once you once you know the system and and yeah so uh so yeah i like it now how how as a we had nicholas lawrence on recently and he was telling us about you know the craziness of.

Of producing a product and stuff like that is that something you guys have covered yet what i was going to ask was like what was it like actually bringing this to life like was it yeah a mad dash we both as we mentioned earlier on we both had products released via magic dealers in the past both have got other products coming out with a deal but we're also now i know i am i know kev is starting to self produce as well so this is a complete self-production

by by me and kev you know everything seen from the components in there from the packaging to the production the trailer everything thing is done by by me and kev and although it is really a lot of work i'm sure kev will agree it's some it's some serious legwork to get it done you end up very proud of the products at the end when you know you've kind of done it and also you are you're in control of the product as well so if you're not happy

with how something works probably about like i don't know three three weeks out we weren't quite happy with the trailer so we completely changed the trailer if If that was via a magic dealer, we probably wouldn't have been able to do that. But we, you know, we were able to have that creative control and do what we wanted to do. So I did enjoy that part of it. And what have you chosen to do with your millions of dollars? Yes.

Just your own effects because that's what that's what we all assume right. You create an effect and you rake it in yeah it's uh it's an interesting industry it's um you know it i think that creating magic is obviously it's very nice to to make money from creating magic but it's for me.

It's it's not just that it's a fulfillment thing and having a stamp on the industry as well and like you know something that i've studied and loved for a very very long time i get to you know have my own little like say stamp on it and yeah you get you get you get a good feeling from that well question to both of you guys because you've you know kev made mention he's been releasing stuff since 2016 and this project in itself took four years for it to come to for

to where it is now but do you guys feel pressure to have to constantly release things or is it kind of happening organically i i think it's one of those things where once you once you you get started or if you you put out your first thing you're kind of thinking oh like where do I go go now because I can remember when I put out my first product I was like I'm done that's it like you know that's all I've got that's all I've got to offer I don't have anything else stacked up so for

me it's kind of just like a natural thing that maybe when you you're still in that mindset and you're thinking about oh what could I do with this or how could I do do that it just just kind kind of comes to fruition over time and it just happens it's not like you know i'm like all right i've got come up with my next release or what i'm i'm going to do next because then i think that would be like a pressured thing and then and then probably the quality.

Of of what you put out is not going to be up to scratch so yeah that's that's what i said from my point of view i don't know about paul yeah it's so i think i probably mentioned it before in somewhere but before overdraft came out i you know i'd had about 20 tricks that i'd.

Over the course of the year like sent out to magic dealers and they'd all been rejected and then it just so happened that you know overdraft got accepted and then ever since that it's like d christopher's from 1914 he said to me goes it'll be easier now you know people listen to you a little bit more and very quickly people started saying yes but i've tried to force creativity before and it doesn't work but i find that there's certain periods in the year where you

just get hit by a spout of it and it happens and i'll come up with like two or three ideas over the course of like a week and then that'll be it for like seven months and then it's just a case of how do i then turn those ideas into something and sometimes i'll never can you know they're just not they're not you know worth anything or they're just the ideas are terrible but yeah it's difficult you can't you can't force it but as a creator it is addictive it's definitely

addictive because you're releasing a lot of say people especially if it's well received.

People uh people like your stuff and they want to see more but you know you just you obviously have to stay true to your principles and uh try and only release stuff that you you back and that's why everything i release and a lot i know we did it on cubify i always release stuff that's got live performances so at least people can see even if it's not for them they can see i'm actually doing it all right and i believe in my products and i do perform them so yeah that's that's probably the

thing i can say on creativity but what are the prerequisites in order to be comfortable enough to release it like at what point do you sort of say no because of this like is there a list of things that you sort of have in your mind like it must a it must be it must see oh no yeah i'm also just just as you're thinking of the answer i just realized when i wrote kev g on here like this is permanent shabby so i just i've just committed this particular cube to kev g gigs now yeah.

So i forgot what was the question nick how do you make millions of dollars no No. Okay. So for example, I have certain effects that I do, right? Now there's ways that I do it, which are really slight heavy because I'm a slighter hand guy and everyone who comes to my lecture knows that. But whenever I sell the idea to people who want to perform it themselves, I simplify it in such a way that you don't have to do any moves at all. Yeah.

You know, because I've done, I've got a particular card effect that you just need to be able to do an Elmsley count. and that's enough for some people to go, nope, not buying it, can't do that, can't do an Amazon account. And it's like, right, you only got to do it once. But, you know. If you want, like, when you're releasing effects, you're going to have to do it once.

If you're running it like a business, you have to think of it a bit like a business, I think, as well. So if you're looking at it and you've got a commercial idea, a bit like what you said, really, and you want people to buy it, it needs to appeal to the whole market. And we all perform professionally, but we're probably a small percentage in the world that do overall as magicians. So it is, I think, true that methods do need to be streamlined if you want the products to be more available.

But that's not to say that you force that so for instance overdraft right very very simple to perform i didn't make it that way it just so happens that those certain moves that i use to do it are very simple because that's all that's needed to be able to do it all right but yeah it's it's interesting what you said mick about you know you've got effects and you you simplify it for other people because you want them to

be able to do it as well and it is it's true yeah yeah i like Like we'd all just taken it. Have you, have you ever considered putting out a really hard effect just to see what happens? Cause I reckon there's a, there's a balance between, you know, the majority buying it and then like a respect level, which is like, cause for example, like I love Ozzy Wynn's work and some of, some of it's very hard, but there's a reason why his books are always sold out, even if no one ends up performing it.

So there's probably a market for everything but what i guess what i'm saying is like have you considered being like maybe for kev like i because cube work can get very convoluted. Have you dealt like have you thought about this like what's the hardest thing i could put out well i mean there's already i've already got a ton of stuff out on my refractor project which which I've collaborated with my friend, Colin Klaus.

And there is currently eight volumes of that. And it's all gimmickless cube magic. Wow. The tar bell of cube magic. Yeah, that's basically what it is. And we've also got some other stuff coming up as well, which is kind of more advanced stuff. So even harder. But the thing is, we've got stuff that's accessible to people people who just want to get into cube magic and then stuff that like people that have already been established.

And then, and then for those people who are kind of like, want to take it that step further, then, then we've already given them the building blocks to get there. So yeah, we've got, I mean, I've got that kind of stuff available. Um, but it's kind of like each of their own really. So you have levels. So you actually have like people can start here, get more into it and so on. So I've got an idea for Paul. So basically with overdraft, right?

What you could do is you could start with overdraft, but then you could actually sell a second level where it's a manipulation act. So now people are producing up to 30 of these cards at a time.

And now we're talking volume because now you're sending out 50 credit cards at a time yeah and this is you know this is fizzum this is you know mess message me off this josh that sounds like the business proposition yeah yeah like overdraft max you know that's what it's gonna be yeah there you go yeah see it's it's called the debt collector edition yeah yeah.

But i think i think what i'm taking away from this is that there's certain things that have different intentions if your intention is to share a really cool effect that people can perform simply, then that's great. That's your scope. I think for me, like when I'm lecturing, like I'll be lecturing in New Zealand at the end of next month. I remember when I first put this particular lecture together and one of our greatest card guys, Barry Gavin came to me and said, whatever you do,

first two tricks, make them so simple. They can go and do them in the foyer. That was the first thing he said to me. And I, I can't tell you how much I disagreed with that. I just was like, nope, nope. I'm going to do my stuff the way I do it in a hope that people will, one, either see the efforts I go to, see how skilled I am, and it'll inspire them to get to that level, as opposed to just going, here's something simple that you can go and do yourself.

And that was my intention. And I think that it's resulted in a lot of guys stepping up because a lot of these guys now work for me as part of my agency. So I think it's a good thing when people want to step up their skill levels just the same way that you're structuring what's going on there, Kev. I think that is awesome. That is an interesting way to think of it. Now, I will say from going to lectures here in Brisbane, we had Mr.

Tango come and lecture, right? The guy that makes incredible coin gifts. Yeah. And he opened his lecture with a pretty impossible any card at any number that he did explain.

Blame but it definitely flew over people's heads and i wonder if that tuned people out a little bit or made them go what nick's saying like oh my god he's really good he's not just a coin guy let's listen to what he has to say but these are just words right now food yeah i agree with that and i found that when i from doing lectures if i started doing some of the more slight heavy heavy cube stuff i could see there was no there was no point in me explaining how it worked because no one

was going to retain it or understand it so what i've started to do now in my lectures i'll i'll kind of explain the stuff that i know people can sort of pick up and and do pretty easily straight away and then the other stuff i'll just perform it and and say you know if you want to learn this then i've got stuff to be able to do this and don't bother with the explanation because it just kind of goes over people's

heads and i think it's a bit boring for them if they've They've got no interest in it either. So I've kind of learned that and that's what I've been doing from then on.

Yeah i think we have sorry you go paul yeah sorry um i think that with with with with where where i'm in the industry what i do sort of like the type of you know work work i do is that as a time up it's not i'm looking for easy methods but often like as i think we said before methods end up getting streamlined because you end up realizing that a lot of the stuff that you would learn from i don't know a semi-professional or really highly skilled car technician or someone.

Just isn't needed and actually being more direct and often being bold as well right i get really excited about bold stuff in the real world like i do a lot of watch dealing and things like that and there's nothing as strong as that right it's it's so good but my my lecture is called working magic and it's kind of a play on words because i work in magic magic but also it's magic that works in in the real world and everything in there is relatively easy but the feedback

i get from the lecture is that people almost like it opens their eyes up a little bit to what's actually possible what they what they thought they needed to do as a magician and what actually they uh they they can get away with and and do uh you know a paid gig and that's one of the reasons i really liked the uh the system with cubify and why i was drawn to it and wanted to do something with it was because it was okay although solving a Rubik's Cube isn't technically easy because you have to

learn it and when I've learned years and years ago to solve Rubik's Cube it took a lot of time right I learned from Mark Elston's DVD Rubik remembered I think it was called from Alakazam and I still do that method now and and I knew.

That it was going to you know once I learned that skill it was something that I carry on throughout my career as a magician but I really liked the simplicity of what kev taught on cube cards because like i said it only required the same moves in the same moves out whereas previous versions of something similar had required you to learn different sets of moves so for me because it was streamlined it appealed to me and with this although this is really basic for what kev could do

and it is very easy it's something that definitely commercial enough for me to perform we're talking about cubify but yeah it's definitely saying i'll perform and the reviews that have come out on it people are surprised how easy it is because if you've never picked up a cube before obviously you're going to have the challenges of obviously holding a cube right because you've got to learn to hold it but actually i don't know

like it's super simple i mean josh you're a cube guy right and i showed you the trailer and you i said i think you'll like this and instantly he was like yeah i love cubes i love this this is right up my alley oh yeah like cubes are becoming more and more relevant now And just see, and, but so the issue that I've been having internally as a performer is that. Like I love cube magic, but there's only so many things you can do with cubes currently.

Like, unless you really, you know, really trying to be as creative as you can, but for the most part, it's like, you can solve a cube, you can match a cube and like, you know, and then there's going to be other variations of that. So like internally as a performer, I'm like too, too many people are doing that, which is fine, but I just don't want to be the guy that then does that act again. End, you know, like I know, you know, Nick does cube work, I do cube work.

We probably both do matching cube routines. And like, I would hate for someone to have watched Nick and then come to watch me and then see this. So like, I'm always trying to think of what other things I can do with cubes, even no matter how hard or convoluted they are.

You know, I think I share with you, Paul, that I've started, you already do this, but I've started working on the seven by seven routine with the larger cube, you know, and, But then you showed me this, and this is a different thing, totally different concept with cubes. So that's why we're not going to air this episode in Australia because I don't want too many Aussie magicians creating the same problem now where everyone's doing this.

Well, this cubify routine would be perfect for the Brisbane Theatre where you're performing, because it's kind of a parlour, but it's an intimate crowd, right?

How many are in the audience normally? yeah we have 40 people at a time so this is like perfect for that like even without like video screens because people would be able to see the revelations of the uh the cubes yeah it worked perfect there absolutely and i'm i'm also thinking too like have you have you guys played around with the idea of of having like you know two cubes that spell out a longer thing or a four or something like that because now i'm thinking you know the henry

harrius products that are out there what if few on one of his products had the letters. So an audience member shuffles up the thing, goes in the bag, comes out, you know, ah, it's a joke, this one's still mixed up and normally you would then match the cube, but what if it doesn't match at all, it's just, but now that's preset for what you're gonna do with this one. Put it together, and now it could spell Brisbane Theatre of Magic.

That's where my head just went because I'm like, I need more than nine. Like the Rubik's wall type thing, right, but with actual cubes. Yeah, that's cool. I like it. We'll talk. We'll see that in one of our videos in about a week's time, won't we? That's it. Yeah, you'll see it. Yeah, you'll see it online. But no, yeah, so to magicians listening to this, I think what it does is it creates another avenue for view magic now that we can explore.

Law yeah and i think as professionals we we more appreciate utilities as opposed to having to do effects that are just created in such a way it's like you have to do this one trick the way we all do it it's like no i'm going to use that utility and do it perform it in a way that no one's thought about and it's like oh that guy's genius that he took kevi g's and paul falla's trick and he's made it this really awesome hilarious piece of entertainment i have

another idea have you guys Do you guys supply numbers with them or just letters? It's just letters. Because now, you know, in Australia, mobile numbers, mobile phone numbers are 10 numbers. But let's say you take it. So our numbers go 0, 4 and then 8 random numbers. But what if you took out the 0 and it's just 4? And what if you could like have someone mix it and it actually has a number and then they just add the 0 at the start? Or you could have letters in the cube.

You can have the letters on the cube and then those letters would correspond to a number. So let's say it was like the number C. There you go. Look, put that number into your phone right now. And then they dial the ones and then it ends up ringing your phone, right? Oh my God. Hang on. That's even, let me just check that that iPhone still do that. They do. So you can actually put that random number in. Hey, so we don't have to repackage this now. It already comes with the letters.

So this is good. So you put that in and then it calls like the woman who's helping. It calls like her husband who's in the audience or something.

Like yeah whatever this is guys this is the this is the magic guys magic that happens in this universe this is the excuse coming in two months time yeah but isn't that like i've been trying to think of a routine that would call an audience member in our show and you know i was looking at card phone that david penn has been you know talking about lately and stuff that's awesome But like, this is something totally different you could, and this is seemingly very random,

especially, you know, it's good. Put me down for 20. All right. Yeah. And that's what we're saying. You can, you know, the world's your oyster with what you can predict and, and, and use it for and show and stuff. Love it. It's awesome. Paul, how is your trade show and other courses going? Yeah. Okay. Um, so yeah. When did I release a trade show course? I don't think I'd released it. And I think I was about to do it when it was last on.

That's right. Really, really good. So I've taken on quite a few people off the back of that here in the UK. And now some of them have ended up working for me on trade shows, which has been really good. So for them, their investment has been unreal. They've done the course. They've come and shadowed me on trade shows. And I've let them have a go.

They've impressed me and then i've actually given them trade show paid work because of it and and yeah that you know it's been really that been really really good because part of the idea was i wanted to build a team where i've got a surplus of trade show work that i can't always do i now try and sell the concept of and i think we spoke about the brand magician team so when someone books they're not necessarily booking me unless they

request me they're booking the brand magician team so then it becomes more of a trade show type agency as opposed to just me with things like family and sickness and stuff like that and as long as i know that people are doing the right a good job you know it's and they're doing my system it works really really well we're starting to see the the bigger plan of paul fowler here the bigger empire whether whether it was planned or not i like it

and random question does cube magic is there a place for cube magic in in trade show work yeah i think so yeah definitely uh one of my if so there's two ways of doing trade shows you know you can do as you well know if you do trade shows i know nick does i think josh you do trade shows as well i've done i would say i do like three a year i wouldn't say i'm like banging him out with those with those uh australian prices like that's all you need to do isn't it

like three a year you don't need to like do any more than that i think it's the other way around The UK. You guys, you know, $1 is like our weekly wage. It's definitely the other way around. Oh, fair enough. Yeah, the, what was the question? Sorry, I've forgotten. Oh, QMagic and Tray Show.

Oh, and Tray Show, yeah. So there's two ways of doing, you know, Tray Show and Magic. You can either use it as lead generation or you can do more presentation type stuff. I've done Q matching effects before. I mean, sort of Tray Show presentations, but I'm, and I spoke to Kev about this. I do it a lot in my cab ride and I do it even close up now where it's the solution by Michael Murray where you put the Q behind their back.

They mix it up. And then it comes out and it's just what I love about that is that it takes it away from you doing something and then makes it about the audience. And I have experimented with actually saying that I can't solve the cube myself and saying, but I want to see if we can try something with you so that they have no pre-knowledge that I can even solve a cube. And then it adds to the effect as well, because apparently, you know, they've done it themselves.

But yeah, with cubes at trade shows, it works really well because you can talk about finding the solution, you know, and you can talk about the pieces being like people walking around the trade show and it's our job to find you the right connection and put you together. So, you know, there's so many different lines that you can put with it.

That cubes are really well trade shows yeah the branding stuff is always really interesting because you typically want to try and use some of their products and so forth at a cookie company come at me a little while ago and i was like i need samples i need this i need that and then i like didn't have a budget in the end but like it's just there's a level of creativity you got to bring to the game which is which is crazy and i think that like your product that's coming out

now with the cube cubify with the lettering i think it's just one of those things that again is only limited by your own creativity and i think it'd be perfect for trade shows and just confirming it is out now already right like.

I put the link to the penguin magic link to it down below yeah yeah it's been out two three weeks maybe now so uh yes it's out so you can go and buy it it's uh it's ready to go while stocks last all right and uh nice nice nick we'll have to check if um our local dealer piper magic is is stocking it otherwise we just you know get it from the u.s but but it's exciting stuff and because you guys have just had blackpool right that's already happened uh it was in february yeah

well you guys was there any part of you that was like damn it why didn't we have this out before then well i don't know if that makes a difference in um it just it just wasn't where it was just wasn't ready was it care that at that it was close it was really close but not not quite and it would have but we couldn't have got it out in time and got it out by murphy's before yeah we also we were talking about doing like a sort of pre-sale on it but because we had to deal with murphy's

on it that like we just we just couldn't do that and we we held it back anyway to uh to make sure that you know it got the best push it could do when it when it when it got released, I mean, you know, at least by then you'll have Cubify Plus ready to go. Yep. With Josh's name on it. Very small in the corner though, yeah. From Magic Guys, from Australia.

Now, it seems like you've worked alongside Murphys for a while now, Paul.

Is there news of anything else coming up in the near future? so i so murphy's i met murphy's at blackpool as in like murphy's team at blackpool a couple years ago and i i got really well with them and they took me out for dinner and had a really good time met some great great magicians as well and they just sort of said you know i'd had overdraft out and transaction out at the time and they were just talking about what's coming out and i said

i'd like to you know self-produce and i didn't have any idea of kind of what i needed to do to do that so i just learned that process of what i did do and i've got i think quite a good relationship with them now and the buyers and the purchasers and i've got some other things coming out i've actually got another self-release coming out i showed nick before we went on air i can't talk about it on air at the moment but it's i've just sent stock to murphy so that should be out in the next few

weeks and i've also got a kev knows what this trick is because kev's seen it but I've also got another trick, an EDC trick coming out that Murphys are producing themselves. So it's actually going to be a Murphy's Studio release. And we're at the stage of...

Sample stage i think at the moment so we hopefully that might be out in the next year hopefully and then yeah i've got a few other things going on but it's just just it's fine in time because it is a busy guy busy guy we need to get we need to get you and nick talking more because nick has all these crazy magic things he does and i'm sure at one at one point or another nick i'm sure you want to you know spread your magic juju to the world you want you want to you want to produce it with

pull fail effects don't you nick that's what you want to do we need to see a combination we all want to sign up as trade show magicians with the brand magician and release effects.

Yeah spreading our magic juju that's it i want you know i really want to come to australia as well so if i ever come to australia you know and do like lectures uh we need to hang out we'll set it up we'll set it up i'll be there on my own waiting for you you won't it'd be really funny if you're waiting at the airport and then all of a sudden like you you call an uber and just the kangaroo just hops along and it's like yeah, that's exactly what i'd expect yeah it's

the vision i have sorry god no no they are close to to verifying kangaroos as ubers yeah so that could be a thing but but please do come obviously nick in his city has the melbourne magic festival but you know both where we are in different cities but we can definitely tee up lectures and you know work on that 10 you know we can get lots of stuff happening do you see yourself having an opportunity to i mean with all your commitments

with family and work and everything else would you have an opportunity to bounce across the planet do you think kev yeah i'd love to i mean i get the six weeks off and there's some holidays so that's always a prime opportunity to uh to do stuff like that but yeah i i did come over to Australia back in 2005 I think so quite a while ago but yeah I'd love to come back and do some lectures and stuff that'd be awesome.

Absolutely well i'm curious what were you doing back in 2005 because that would have been like i was in high school now yeah so nick i'm the same age as you so i was i think i just finished university and yeah that's right i finished university and i decided to do like a round the world trip and yeah so one of my stop-offs was australia so i flew into melbourne and then then traveled east coast basically up to cairns and then over to new zealand and then samoa and then the states wow that's

a perfect journey for someone like yourself which is kind of weird because i feel like that's that's a very aussie way of doing things i finish uni and i travel the world and then i'll be a grown-up yeah exactly exactly i thought i thought i'm gonna miss the opportunity of wise you know i mean i thought i need to just do it now so i'm gonna go around around the world and then not become a grown-up grown-up i'm going to start being magician.

That was it and i went on my own as well i just i was like i'm just going on my own, and it was great i loved it nice did you have long hair i had long hair sure yeah long hair yeah, but yeah i think i sort of like dabbled a little bit in magic i didn't do like a turn because i'd sort of started getting into it when i was at university but i probably like did like some car tricks and that was kind of the extent of what i did at that point yeah wow hey you know i think to end as we

draw to a close slowly we did have one speak pipe nick that came in from thomas conga and i think this could be a fun little question to end with i'm going to play i have to play through my from my phone to my speaker so nick i'll just watch you with the uh the audio levels This came in from Thomas Conger.

Hey, Magic Guys and Cat, how's it going? Thomas Conger here. This is my question. So recently, I've had this happen to me in dreams before as an artist where I paint something in a dream and I kind of can remember it and bring it back into the real world. I'm curious because I recently had a dream for the first time where I was actually performing magic inside the dream to somebody.

And I'm curious if any of you have a story where you guys dream about doing magic in your dream and if you've ever done something in a dream that gave you an idea outside and you started performing it in real life that's pretty much it i've had it happen to me like i said as an artist where also many times where i dream of something i'm like man that was a really cool thing and i remember being in the dream going wow that was a really cool looking piece and i can't remember it and i can't bring

it back into reality and it really pisses me off sometimes because i wish i could just hone in on that and i'm curious if you guys have ever had that happen to you as magicians since you guys do that constantly especially since i know it happens to a lot of people who like start using vr headsets and stuff where they start dreaming in vr reality.

Sometimes okay hopefully it wasn't too long thank you guys i'm out can i can i just share the back of that that i had a conversation with a friend of mine just recently and i was i was stating this and I'll just be out with it. I think it's super douchey when magicians are all like, I had a dream that this happened. I don't know why. I just think they're full of shit and it's really just not genuine. I just think it's bullshit. But in the same breath, I'm someone who does dream a lot.

And I was having a conversation not too long ago where someone actually turned to me and said, you dream?

You don't just lay down in the dark and then wake up in the morning like you actually go to a different place in your head like you dream i'm like of course i dream i dream all the time and so i had i started asking people like do you actually go to sleep and dream like do you go to another place you know are you like oh i was on a i was on a boat with abraham lincoln playing the banjo and then all of a sudden you know spider-man came

in and was like hey who ate all the cheese like you know those really weird dreams oh yeah yeah so It's really deep, all of a sudden, isn't it? Yeah. But have you ever dreamt relating to a magic effect? The circle of back to Thomas, like the even dream, and two, yes, go on. Yeah, I actually have. I actually have. So I've got an effect, which is in my lecture, called Payback. And it was actually after Transaction came out. I was thinking about what else I could do with a receipt. And...

And I basically dreamt the effect, and it was really weird. And I woke up, and I went, will that work? And it did. I actually sold the rights to a magic company here in the UK called Alakazam Magic, and it hasn't come out yet, but they gave me the permission to basically teach it and make it up at my lectures. So I did do that. And also, one of my effects had come out of Murphy's, weirdly. I didn't dream it, but I came up with the method while I was in the shower.

That was it. i was scrubbing my back probably somewhere else as well and then i came up with the effect and thought oh yeah that's a good idea and yeah so dream and showers that's it wow is it a sponge ball routine yeah wow i'm trying to think i don't if i'm just being brutally honest i'm pretty sure i haven't dreamt of doing a magic effect that wasn't real magic or something and then woken and i've been gone i definitely have dreamt that

i have real powers like that you know the thing that we all want in real life but definitely not like an effect right is that power where somebody the siri name's number is it and then you can somehow pull the card out however many times you want to hey well dreams do come true paul but you know other times you know i can't fly unfortunately but definitely i don't.

Know kev yeah i try so i like i rarely remember my dreams so that's that's a really tricky one but just jumping on what paul said about like being in the shower that's a quite a lot of time when there's like you know you're not having to think about anything else that's when i'll go all right yeah that that might work or i can do this and that happened literally two days ago because i'm doing a show um next thursday i don't really do i mainly do close-up stuff so this is like

a sort of stand-up parlor type thing and there was a part and it thinking oh like what what can i do about that and then it just i was in a shower it popped into my head i was like perfect got that shower made up what i needed to make up in it and it worked perfectly so yeah those those moments are a great the magic shower there you go there's a new thing there isn't there like the magic shower more i wonder if i wonder if it's because that's the one

time we're disconnected from the world like we our phone can't distract us you know People can't distract us. Most definitely. I think it's when you have this moment of relaxation. And for me, a lot of things come to me when I pee. Cause I literally could, cause you stand in front of the bowl, you take a second, you're like, ah, and then you release. And then all of a sudden, like an idea just goes, Hey, what do you think about this? And you're like, that's good. P fairy. Thank you for the idea.

Just as you're peeing. Ah, Ed Marlowe's miracles, page 17. I wonder if I could do that. What one thing i do is whenever i'm falling asleep i will see visualizations of things that i've been trying to create or or whatever else and there's one particular effect that i came up with in particular that was sort of dreamt up and it was i have this card at any color effect and i had to structure it and build it up.

Yeah. And it's a very complex deck of cards, almost unusable for any other effect other than just that. But I created it and I just remember falling asleep and structuring every single permutation of the colors and everything else and putting it all together. So I will say yes, that I think that when you do fall asleep, your body and your brain tends to process all the things that have happened that day.

And it's basically doing like a random memory dump and just categorizing everything of what's important. So you can obviously think about more of those things in your sleep, and then when morning comes, yeah, hope to crap that you don't forget them all. I mean, I personally journal everything first thing in the morning, so all my dreams, which are weird.

Nice. That's why I think a lot of people say, oh, you know, they've got to make a decision about something, like I'll sleep on it because, like, your brain's sort of like working, trying to solve it, and the next day you're like, oh, yeah.

Are not doing now or it's pop in your head you know how you're going to solve that problem so i like it now nick we have an issue here so we normally end with the final word but we have two guests so how are we gonna settle this one we are going to have them fight to the death no we're just going to uh allow them to speak kindly to each other and to us i think it's okay to finally take it home with the final word you guys ready yes ready all right so

we talk about creativity that's what this has all been about isn't it so i think that magicians should always strive to add some creativity in what they do all right we owe it to ourselves as magicians performers to be different than magicians before us the magicians that we work with the magicians that we know tweak what you do a little bit and be Be different. Being different is good.

Eloquently put I don't know if I can say it quite as nicely but I think what I'd say is if you're if you want to be a creative right if you want to get your ideas out there I think the more ideas you come up with the the more things you've got to pick from but if it's something that you are doing yourself you're going out and you're performing it and you're working it you know it works 100% then those things are the ones that I've got probably

got a little bit of legs and that you can show other people and get their feedback and then potentially you know it could be something that you could release in the future thanks for listening it's time for us to disappear now disappear now but we'll see you again on the next episode of the magic guys.