Alan Holmes is a musician

Musician

A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....

, artist

Artist

An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

 and record producer

Record producer

A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...

, based in north Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

.
Although he began his musical career in the late 1960s in childhood beat group The Insects, he first came to prominence in The Zuggs (in 1979), followed by A Silly Tree, the latter including Gary Stubbs, later of Cut Tunes with whom Holmes also served. Holmes was responsible for the cult psychedelic band The Pinecones and by the mid-1980s he was a key member of Reinheitsgebot, Third Spain and The Lungs.

Holmes' career came into its own though as bass

Bass guitar

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

-player with the late-1980s Welsh language

Welsh language

Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...

 punk

Punk rock

Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

 group Fflaps

Fflaps

Fflaps was a Welsh post-punk group in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The band was composed of vocalist and guitarist Ann Matthews, bassist Alan Holmes and drummer Jonny Evans. Between their formation in 1987 and split in 1992, they released 3 LPs and an EP, recorded 2 Peel Sessions and toured...

, who released two LPs for the Liverpool Probe Plus

Probe plus

Probe Plus is a record label based in Liverpool, England. It was founded by Geoff Davies, an enthusiastic promoter of small, unsigned bands, who describes the label as "Music to drive you to drink"....

 label and a third for the Central Slate label, in addition to touring Europe extensively between 1988 and 1992. After his bass amplifier blew up on stage, he moved to guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

 and the group morphed into the more psychedelic/experimental

Experimental music

Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...

 Ectogram

Ectogram

Ectogram are a Welsh band from Bangor, United Kingdom.Ann Matthews and Alan Holmes were previously members of Welsh language post-punk band Fflaps between 1987–1993, touring Europe, releasing three LPs and recording two John Peel Sessions during that time...

 in 1993.

Holmes has worked as a session musician on several albums by Welsh artists including the debut album by Melys

Melys

Melys are a Welsh independent rock band from Betws-y-Coed in Conwy, Wales, formed in 1996. They sing in both English and Welsh...

, and has produced several albums including the early releases of Gorky's Zygotic Mynci

Gorky's Zygotic Mynci

Gorky's Zygotic Mynci were a Welsh alternative rock band, formed in Carmarthen, west Wales in 1991. They sang songs in both Welsh and English. They split up in May 2006.-Biography:...

. He has also been responsible for much of the sleeve art of the Ankst label.

He continues to work with his own groups Ectogram

Ectogram

Ectogram are a Welsh band from Bangor, United Kingdom.Ann Matthews and Alan Holmes were previously members of Welsh language post-punk band Fflaps between 1987–1993, touring Europe, releasing three LPs and recording two John Peel Sessions during that time...

 and Parking Non-Stop, in addition to making solo recordings as The Groceries.
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There are also:

• Another musician of the same name, a prominent session
  Session musician
  Session musicians are instrumental and vocal performers, musicians, who are available to work with others at live performances or recording sessions. Usually such musicians are not permanent members of a musical ensemble and often do not achieve fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders...
  
   saxophonist in the 1960s.
• A British astronomer
  Astronomer
  An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...
  
   named Alan R. Holmes