Criss Angel

Criss Angel

Criss Angel (born Christopher Sarantakos, December 19, 1967^[1] in East Meadow, New York) is an American musician, magician, illusionist, escapologist, yoga master, stunt performer, and the creator and director of the Criss Angel Mindfreak television series on A&E Network.

1 Career as an Illusionist
- 1.1 Legitimacy
- 1.2 Competition and popularity
2 Musical career
3 Discography
4 References
5 External links
6 Categories

Career as an Illusionist

Criss Angel is now ending his second season of Mindfreak which is filmed at the Aladdin Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada, as well as in Los Angeles, California, and near Angel's home on Long Island, New York.

Legitimacy

Some of Angel's levitation tricks have been explained by Criss himself, notably on a DVD which is available for purchase from his official website store. The levitation featured on the DVD was an original invention of Jacob Spinney. Angel often states that several of the levitations, teleports and demonstrations of telekinesis he performs are done through the power of the mind, body and spirit attained through meditation. Some of the other methods are well known within the magic fraternity and have been performed previously by magicians such as David Copperfield, David Blaine and the Pendragons. Angel is writing a book entitled Mindfreak: Secret Revelations from the Master of Surreality.Many viewers and critics allege that Angel uses camera special effects, post-production effects, forced viewing angles, and assistants acting as amazed spectators for the TV audience. Many magicians who perform magic without camera tricks resent these methods while others simply see them as modern tools of magic on television. Criss Angel himself claims he does not use camera trickery, and had made an attempt to debunk these rumors during the second season by introducing a "Spectator's Point of View camera", a handheld video camera given to a what he says is a random person in the audience to literally shoot the action in any way he or she wants. However, the camera has seemingly fallen out of favor as the second season continued, only showing up very sporadically. He has even revealed the methods for some of his tricks to viewers at home, (although the effects are usally very simple such as making a toothpick disappear, or making a styrofoam cup float.) Angel guest starred on an episode of "Las Vegas" in which he says "If it's real, it's not magic!".

Competition and popularity

Fans of Criss Angel have compared him to similar street magician David Blaine, to the point of assuming there is a rivalry going on between them. However, Criss has indicated that he doesn't see any such rivalry existing between them, noting that Blaine had come to visit him and offer his support during his 2002 Oasis stunt. Criss also sympathized with Blaine regarding his failure to successfully complete his own similarly-themed 2006 stunt, Drowned Alive.^[2]In a November 2002 issue of the New York Post, Blaine was quoted on the lesser known Criss Angel's taunts used to capitalize off of Blaine's fame^[3], and that Angel should attempt to match Blaine's efforts to survive without food or water (a challenge Angel did not accept and that Blaine attempted on his own)."^[4]It has been reported that Criss Angel will be fronting a new Cirque du Soleil show at the Luxor in Las Vegas. The report says that Criss signed a 10-year deal.

Musical career

Criss Angel was in an industrial rock band called Angeldust, which he started with Klay Scott (now known as Klayton of Celldweller) after Klayton's previous band Circle of Dust broke up. Angeldust released an album called Musical Conjurings from the World of Illusion in 1998 and performed in Madison Square Garden. He has also released several more CDs as Criss Angel.

In a more recent tone, Criss Angel created the video MF2 featuring Sully Erna, the lead singer of Godsmack. The video debuted on Yahoo! videos.

Musical Conjurings from the World of Illusion is being re-released and can be pre-ordered from Criss Angel's site Criss Angel Store

Discography

All of these albums were self-released under APITRAG Records.

Album	Tracks	Notes
Musical Conjurings from the World of Illusion (1998)	01. Come Alive 02. Down 03. Fear 04. Thrush 05. Procreation 06. Die For Me 07. Edge of the World 08. Darkest Day (JS) 09. Hate Me 10. Deadlove Calling 11. Do You Know 12. Metamorphosis (Theatrical Score) 13. Forever	As Angeldust.
System 1 in the Trilogy (2000)	01. Come Alive 02. Down 03. Fear 04. Thrush 05. Procreation 06. Die For Me 07. Edge of the World 08. Darkest Day (JS) 09. Hate Me 10. Deadlove Calling 11. Do You Know 12. Metamorphosis (Theatrical Score) 13. Forever	Same tracks as Musical Conjurings from the World of Illusion. Features Intro Dialogue of Come Alive by Clive Barker. All songs written, produced, arranged, performed & mixed by Criss Angel & Klayton.
System 2 in the Trilogy (2000)	01. Hümbodik 02. Phantasm 03. Cocoon 04. Inhuman 05. Enrapture 06. Entranced 07. Metamorphosis 08. Tremor 09. D.A.M. 10. XTC 11. Underground 12. Perelandra.2	All songs written, produced, arranged, performed & mixed by Criss Angel & Klayton.
System 3 in the Trilogy (2000)	01. In Two 02. Nexus 03. Copycat 04. Rubber Room 05. Firestorm 06. Revelation 07. Disintegration 08. Epilogue 09. 2<0 10. U 11. Why Me 12. Amixtika	All songs written, produced, arranged, performed & mixed by Criss Angel & Klayton.
Mindfreak (2002)	01. Scarecrow 02. Phantasm 03. Cocoon 04. Enrapture 05. Perelandra.3 06. Delusions 07. Snow 08. In Two 09. Tremor 10. Metamorphosis 11. Revelation 12. Closure 13. Epilogue 14. D.A.M.	Intended as a soundtrack for his Mindfreak show. All songs written, produced, arranged, performed & mixed by Criss Angel & Klayton.
Supernatural (2003)	Xristos Hümbodik Metamorphosis Goodbye N2 (Supernatural) Scarecrow.2	Unreleased, exact track listing unavailable. Soundtrack for his Supernatural special.
Criss Angel Mindfreak (2006)	01. Mindfreak 02. MF2 03. Mindfreak (Celldweller Remix) 04. Come Alive 05. Down 06. Fear 07. XTC 08. D.A.M. 09. Die For Me 10. Underground 11. Procreation 12. Do You Know 13. Mystify 14. Fly 15. Now I Die 16. Carmela 17. Awake 18. Fight 19. Mindfreak (Desert Remix) 20. Goodbye 21. Mindfreak (Season 1 Theme) 22. Mindfreak (Season 2 Theme)	Mindfreak television series official soundtrack. "MF2" features Sully Erna from Godsmack and Nuno Bettencourt from DramaGods. "Mindfreak (Season 1 Theme)" produced by Jonathan Davis of Korn.