TEST- The Aztec Theatre

Event Detail

Alex Clare - Three Hearts

All Ages
at Portland International Raceway
1940 North Victory Boulevard, Portland, OR 97217
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You can learn a lot about someone by asking them what they think the greatest record ever made is. Take Alex Clare. Tell him you’re going round to his flat tonight with the express intention of smashing every piece of recorded music he owns – leaving him only one – and the ideas just come tumbling out. “Wow!” he laughs. “If it was production wise I’d probably go for Radiohead’s OK Computer. It’s an incredible record – kind of mind-blowing really. But it’s not the greatest record ever made…” Alex stirs his coffee and thinks.   “The first record I ever fell in love with was The Score by The Fugees, but that’s not the greatest record ever made either. I used to think it was The White Album – but it’s not that… I suppose it might be Donny Hathaway’s second album, the one with Magnificent Sanctuary Band on? But I think, really, it’s Stevie Wonder’s Songs In The Key Of Life. That track Have A Talk With God has the most incredible synth parts you’ve ever heard. That’s the greatest record ever made for me.”   He sits back – pleasurably exhausted.   “You can’t touch Stevie,” he says. “Even his bad ones are amazing!”   Alex Clare is just the sort of musician you’re glad is still being made in the country’s basements, backrooms and bedrooms. Born and bred in South East London and raised on his dad’s bebop records, as a child Alex toyed with the trumpet before taking up the drums to help him get rid of all his nervous energy.   “There was nothing much to do other than skate, smoke weed and play in bands,” he says. His sister loved Alanis Morisette and his brother loved Oasis, but Alex thought they were both awful. He was into jungle and UK Garage and had begun listening to voodoo blues of Dr John and the street corner harmonies of Snooks Eaglin. Alex wanted more from music. “Jazz and blues and soul were a comfort to me,” he says.
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