It’s the highlife for AJ Holmes and The Hackney Empire

4:25pm Thursday 2nd September 2010

By Melanie Dakin

Feelgood sounds are top of the agenda at The Enfield Autumn Show with ‘80s ska reggae outfit The Beat headlining a blistering line-up of live acts.

East London band AJ Holmes and The Hackney Empire take to the stage, fresh from playing their regular slot at Notting Hill Arts Centre, with their explosive blend of West African rhythms and post-punk energy.

An enthusiastic guitarist in search of a sound, frontman Alexander John Holmes (AJ) tuned to African music as a child.

“As far back as I can remember I was hearing this sound but I didn’t know what it was. I went to this secondhand record shop in Hackney and bought everything I could on the Tabansi label including tracks such as I Love Nigeria by the Tabansi Allstars. I loved the music of Zaire and The Congo. I gobbled it all down.”

AJ discovered the music he termed ‘afrobeat’ actually comprised of many sounds from rumba to highlife, a heady vibe incorporating brass band and jazz music with elements of calypso, that originated in Sierra Leone, Ghana and Nigeria in the 1920s.

“Highlife is a melting pot,” explains AJ. “It’s a hybrid of gospel and traditional African native airs.”

AJ lucked-in when he met African music teacher Folo Graff. Graff emigrated from Freetown in Sierra Leone and joined Orchestre Jazira signed to Beggars Banquet in the ‘80s.

“Folo put up an advert in the Whitechapel Arts Centre offering African guitar tuition, and it just so happened he was living right next to me on Hackney Road. He taught me how to play palm wine guitar and highlife music. We became great friends. I wanted to play highlife, but Folo told me what I Iiked was actually rumba.”

Folo and AJ played together in the rumba band Les Beaux Gosses de Berlin, then AJ formed The Hackney Empire a year and a half ago.

Into the pot, AJ also added the blues/folk influences of his father, plus his own electro-pop and indie/punk heritage.

“Ours is a pan-African sound fusing highlife, meringue, secousse and palm wine,” says AJ. “ It harnesses the energy of punk and the power of rock and roll.

“I am straight-up an East End Barking and Dagenham boy, and you can hear it all in my voice. We’re influenced by African music, such as highlife or rumba, but it isn’t spot on.

“We’re not playing African music. There’s no point trying to be something were not.”

Now in its 57th year, The Enfield Autumn Show also features family activities including toddler olympics, tea dances, Greek and Turkish dancing, horticulture, falconry, farmyard animals and arts and craft workshops. Also appearing is Hackney Ninja Folk Band Victor Menace with their classical, roots gyspy sound, north London folkster Katy Carr, circus and street performer Kwabana Lindsay and samba band Rhythms Of The City.

The Enfield Autumn Show is on Saturday, September 4 and Sunday, September 5, from 10.30am to 6pm daily at Town Park, Enfield. Details: 020 8363 1461/66