Rebuild Argyle Studio

For the past 30 years, Cam Loeppky has been making Winnipeg sound good. As a sound tech at every music venue in the city, mixing front of house for local bands like the Weakerthans, Cam helped world class artists sound world class. During that time he taught himself the art and science of recording, slowly piecing together the ingredients needed to launch his own studio. Cam did not come from money, he toured non stop and recorded on rare days off, building his reputation and his skills from decades of backbreaking, ear-splitting work. He recorded albums out of his house for a decade before renting a warehouse space on the North End in 2020 and building Argyle Studio during the first six months of the pandemic. Like his other local business, the Goodwill Social Club on Portage, Argyle suffered from a major loss of business during those two years of social distancing. Cam’s touring gigs slowed too and he found himself working harder than ever for less money, trying to keep his two small local businesses afloat. Over the past two years he has taken numerous touring gigs to pay the bills and during a few of these prolonged trips out of town Arglye Studio was broken into, vandalized and burglarized.

Cam built the floors, the walls, the wiring, the lights himself, he traded studio time for painting, he pushed through back pain and near bankruptcy to keep Argyle going. When the burglars broke in they cut through exterior walls, they smashed the glass in his control room, they cut through wiring that will necessitate taking walls down to repair. When he walked in a few days later he found that tens of thousands of dollars in equipment was gone or destroyed. This is gear he bought or borrowed, vintage equipment, electrical parts he soldered personally, gifts from friends and family, the majority irreplaceable.

Cam can be rough around the edges, he can be demanding, he is often the forgotten member of great bands or the person in the background doing a ton of the hardest work without recognition. He will be deeply embarrassed if he reads this and would not imagine in a million years than any of us would think he is worth this effort. Without Cam there would not have been a Goodwill Social Club, there would be no Disintegration Records, no Public Domain, and no Argyle Studio. These are important local art and cultural institutions that many of us are proud of or indebted to for valuable memories. Without Cam Winnipeg would be less, without Argyle Studio it already is. Help us get Cam recording again, even a few bucks will tell him that good people care about other good people in this community.