Updated March 6, 2024 – If Guinness World Records certifies the events of Sunday, Feb. 25, Jon Locker will have etched himself and 81 of his 87 amps into the pages of rock n’ roll history. The mountain of speakers was assembled by Locker, the owner of Sonic Factory Studios in Des Moines and bassist for the Bonne Finken powerpop project BONNE, and GigDay Backline & Rentals.
City officials and executives from Aureon joined First Fleet Concerts and Wooly’s owner Sam Summers on the refurbished Val Air Ballroom stage to bolster excitement for the venue’s relaunch. A classic car show in the parking lot brought auto lovers and guitar nerds alike into the revitalized WWII-era building to witness the attempted record break.
“On the count of three,” urged WDM Chamber of Commerce Director of Membership and Growth Tom Florian, “West Des Moines, can we make this the loudest place on Earth!?”
Following the ribbon-cutting and venue rechristening ceremony on the main stage, attention turned to the right wall of the ballroom where Locker took a final preparatory swig of Mt. Dew.
“Here are the rules,” explained Joe Alton, host of MC22’s The Guitar Department and official event time keeper. “To make this official, the amplifiers must be commercially available. They need to be full-sized, non-portable combo or cabinet and head design. They must be rigged prior to the beginning of the attempt, thank goodness. They need to be rigged up in series, either a daisy-chain or parallel: we have gone with one enormous daisy-chain. Any type of guitar can be played. The claimant, that’s Jon, must play one uninterrupted piece of music lasting five minutes in order to demonstrate the functionality of the amplifier.”
With two witnesses and plenty more than the required “one qualified sound engineer” in attendance, Locker commenced with the attempt. His bass, dubbed “the Barn BilT,” was crafted by Des Moines’ BilT Guitars from the weathered hardwood of his grandparents’ now-leveled barn.
“Going to my grandparents’ farm in Gilman,” Locker told IPR’s Tony Dehner, “that’s where I first saw people playing instruments. There was little family jams… I was young. I just thought Oh this would be the cherry on top of the story of just this barn bass, made from my grandparents’ farm to break this record.”
The mandatory 5 minutes was his to do with as he pleased, so he performed a medley, begining with his own song “My Side” by BONNE. Locker says he intended to rock with that riff a bit longer, but felt the pressure and “bailed out too quickly.”
After a few more covers, Locker concluded his compilation with the part you’re thinking about from AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck,” followed by a finale of “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys.
“I’m super proud of Sam, I can’t imagine anyone doing better here. They spent the money on the right things,” said Locker of the new and improved Val Air. “As you look around, the HVAC, like, turns the whole place over in minutes. I’m super excited about this place. I’m not originally from Des Moines, but I’ve lived here long enough and I understand the history of this place. [Val Air]’s kind of like the Surf [Ballroom]. Any of the old ballrooms, a lot of them are getting torn down… or just letting them fall apart. This could have been right there with it. I’m excited for it, I’m super happy that he didn’t have a soft opening planned already.”
The evidence has been sent and review is pending. The Val Air, having piled four score and seven amps into the ballroom for a “soft” opening, is back in action and will likely push the limits of sound again with Bad Religion and Social Distortion on May 15.
Original story – If you're a concertgoer, you have seen Jon Locker around Des Moines. He's probably sneaked through the corner of your peripheral vision, dressed in black, walking to the sound system. That, or, you’ve seen him playing bass with Bonne Finken.
Locker is one of those staple people in the Des Moines music scene, who, as most sound techs, are everywhere but aren’t front and center most of the time. He’s one of those people who are absolutely essential to any thriving live music scene.
You see, he owns a backline company called Gig Day Backline, as well as the Sonic Factory studios. Musicians need recording studio space, and when they're on tour, backlines.
A backline is the non-instrumental sound-system equipment, like amps and speaker cabinets, that a band needs to play a gig. In many cases, depending on the gig and venue, it can also include instruments like drums (minus cymbals) and keyboards. Backline companies exist in cities where lots of tours come through because bands at a certain level of touring don’t bring all their amps and things with them on the road.
Gig Day Backline does most of the touring shows you see in Des Moines, and so they have A LOT of amps. By a lot, I mean a whole library of anything you might want. They have more than 100 amps, 20 of them being the big Marshall stacks. And one day, while he was looking at all those amps, Locker had an idea.
“So, I have 20 Marshall stacks, and I really wanted to connect them all together to see what it would sound like,” he said. “So, I looked it up, and the current world record for most amps played through at the same time is 50.”
Now, he's gearing up to connect 80 amps and attempt to break the Guinness World Record. He's doing it at the Val Air Ballroom Sunday, Feb. 25.
“I have enough amps that I could do 100, but that opens up a host of different technical challenges,” he explained.
You might be wondering, “How's he going to do that without blowing all those amps?” Well, he’s not worried about that, but he is worried about the part of the whole ordeal that includes actually playing through the amps.
For starters, it’s going to be very hard to hear clearly standing next to a literal wall of sound, and in order to set a new world record, Locker needs to play for five continuous minutes.
“When I was playing with the Nadas,” he laughed, “I’d play this riff from Thunderstruck, so I think I’m going to play a bit of that. There’s a BONNE song off the new record, and there’s a riff in it that’s the riff I play just about any time I pick up a guitar. It’s called ‘My Side,’ and it’s about three minutes.”
After he threads the amps, turns them on and plays, he is also going to open it up for other guitar players to have the experience of playing through an amp stack that big. Des Moines guitar player James Biehn will be on hand that day and will be playing and hosting a pseudo-jam after the world record attempt.
“When I got the idea,” Locker says, “I called Sam Summers to see if he would be interested in hosting this in the historic and newly renovated Val Air Ballroom. We decided it would be really cool to have an open jam and invite the town to be the first ones to play there as it reopens.”
For those who want to know what guitar he'll be playing, he's planning to play on a BILT bass with a whammy bar, either doing five minutes of famous bass lines, all original bass lines or a combination of both. The attempt has to have several official witnesses and has to be filmed with a non-moving wide-angle camera shot from more than four angles. After the video is cut and the paperwork completed from the attempt, Locker will submit his materials to the Guinness committee for review.
If you want to witness the attempt or get involved with helping him cart amps back and forth from storage to the ballroom, contact Locker, and save the date for Sunday, Feb. 25 at noon.
