WORDS & PHOTOS BY CHRIS TIESSEN
‘Do you have a record player at home?,’ Amit asks while I stuff the last bits of camera gear into my frayed green Domke bag. I secure the front clasp, zip up my shell, push down my toque, and look up. Amit is busy flipping through vinyl – ‘digging in the crates’ – looking for a particular record. ‘I don’t,’ I tell him, a tinge of embarrassment in my voice, ‘but I know someone who does.’ He pulls a sleeved record from the stack and hands it to me. Con Todo El Mundo, by Khruangbin. ‘Give this a listen,’ he tells me, ‘and next time we see each other, bring it back and lend me something you think I might like.’ I smile – realizing that everything Amit does, even his leave-takings, is about bringing music to folks’ ears.

It’s Tuesday, early February, the end of the workday, and I’m at Good Company Productions – a multi-faceted music studio that Amit (along with his co-founding partners, Adrian and Rob, and an ever-changing team of staff and volunteers) runs out of the 44 Gaukel co-working building in downtown Kitchener. We have just spent the past two hours chatting about Good Co – where it came from, what it does, where it’s going – and I’m still not certain that either one of us knows the answers. I do know one thing, though. To make some sense of the flourishing creative enterprise that Amit and Adrian have realized, it’s best that we begin at the beginning. It’s time to rewind.
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‘This whole thing began back in 2015,’ Amit tells me once he’s ushered me to a cushy couch near the back of Good Co’s production room, ‘when Adrian and I met as Nanotechnology Engineering classmates at Waterloo. We wanted something to do outside of class,’ he continues, ‘so we decided to start throwing pop-up music shows across Kitchener-Waterloo.’ While Amit talks, I scan the space. The production room, one of three units that Good Co occupies at 44 Gaukel, is dark and moody. Like a music venue. Strings of LED lights hang against black-painted walls that hold dozens of past Good Co show posters and framed art pieces. (I recognize prints by local artists Trish Abe and Luke Swinson.) A sound system – located somewhere in the unit – pumps ethereal tunes into the space. Shelves of mic stands and headphones and hard cases containing music gear of all sorts fill much of the room.
When I push Amit to explain what drove him to put on those first shows, he responds modestly: ‘Actually, we put them on for somewhat selfish reasons.’ I’m intrigued. He continues: ‘In those days, I was traveling back and forth from Toronto up to four times a week to jam [on drums and keyboard] with other musicians. I was tired of the commute – and really just wanted to find local spaces and a scene around here where I could play.’



And while finding local musicians wasn’t that difficult (given the rich Kitchener-Waterloo scene), local venues proved to be more elusive. ‘We found out quickly that there aren’t many music venues locally that can accommodate between sixty to one hundred and fifty patrons,’ Amit remarks, ‘so we decided to look for less conventional sites.’ The result: Amit and Adrian began organizing pop-up shows at juiceries, salons, museums, tech offices, and more: spaces that could be transformed for a night into unique venues before being re-converted to their regular state.
The formula for those earliest Good Co pop-up shows was – and remains – simple enough.
‘We always announced the date and time of the shows ahead of time,’ Amit tells me, ‘but nothing more. When the day of the show arrived, we’d announce the location – but the booked artists remained a surprise until they took to the stage.’ (I reminisce nostalgically about my wanton teenage years as a drum ‘n bass fan, when the location of those mid-nineties raves would be announced only the day of the party. But I digress.)
Amit recalls an especially memorable early pop-up: a December 2017 affair at One King North in Uptown Waterloo. He reminisces: ‘Richard Garvey, a local legend who has since moved out west, started things off by sharing his feel-good folk music with the fifty-or-so folks packed into the space. Singer-songwriter Poesy followed with beautifully-haunting vocals. Two months later, Poesy’s ‘Soldier of Love’ hit the Billboard Top 40 charts.’ Amit pauses, re-playing the show in his mind, and then continues: ‘It was so special to experience talent like that in such an intimate space. The folks that filled the venue that night experienced a bill they will probably never see again – those artists vibing off each other. And that’s what makes our pop-up shows so special: you just never know what you’ll end up being a part of.’
It wasn’t long before these pre-pandemic Good Co pop-ups (then presented with So Far Sounds – a partnership that has since dissolved) gained real traction. The element of mystery surrounding the shows enticed folks across the region to purchase tickets – and, perhaps not surprisingly, also built a unique sort of community among showgoers. Indeed, the shared experience of anticipation, surprise, and ephemeral pleasure brought audience members closer together. More recent Good Co pop-ups continue this tradition. ‘It’s not uncommon for folks to meet new friends at our shows,’ Amit remarks, ‘and to attend the next show together.’ Community through music – a Good Co recipe.
And then, in 2020, the pandemic hit. And, like so many things, Good Co’s pop-up shows ground to a halt. But what could have shuttered the emergent company altogether actually turned out to be a blessing of sorts, since the company now had to look for a means of survival that did not depend on live events. And so, in May 2020, Good Co’s ‘Concert In A Box’ was born – essentially a live-streamed virtual pop-up concert where, on the day of the show, ‘guests’ received a ‘Concert Box’ dropped at their front door containing snacks, games, vouchers from local businesses – plus a show poster. Amit, cool and enthusiastic, elaborates: ‘Artists performed virtually in a remote broadcast concert that was live-streamed to our YouTube channel.’ He continues: ‘This ‘Concert In A Box’ concept eventually grew to the point where we began broadcasting from our studios at 44 Gaukel – scaling from forty boxes to two hundred boxes a show. We were even hired by Google to produce a unique ‘Concert In A Box’ experience for all their employees across North America.’
So the pandemic, it turned out, became the catalyst for an effective pivot – one that had Good Co evolve into what it is today: a multi-faceted initiative that remains hard to define – in all the best ways. In a world without lockdowns, today’s Good Co has gone back to producing live pop-up shows. It’s also continued to use the video production skills the team perfected during its ‘Concert In A Box’ series to produce videos and other content for clients like CBC Music, and for artists including Ramsay Almighty, Joules the Fox, Rachel Hickey, Jaguar Sun, Marshall Veroni, Bonnie Trash, and I, the Mountain, and others. Good Co offers a full range of artist and event services, from release party promotions and strategic consulting to audio technician services and talent buying. It’s currently collaborating with Downtown Kitchener to present free monthly shows, ‘DTK Live at THEMUSEUM!’, that feature such artists as Danny Michel, Dom Vallie, Begonia and more each Thursday from February through April. And it’s managed to develop – room by room – the space Amit and I are seated in now: Good Co’s headquarters at 44 Gaukel.
What began as a single storage unit back in 2019 has today evolved into a three-unit mecca. There’s the (aforementioned) moody production space with its black-painted walls. Next to it, there’s ‘The Orange Room’ (which is, appropriately enough, completely orange) – used for everything from artist video recordings to music lessons. It’s in these spaces where Good Co produced live off-the-floor video projects for artists including the likes of JJ Wilde, Justin Nozuka, Jaguar Sun, Lyle Kam, and Sarah Thawer. A third unit, added in 2022, functions as a standalone rehearsal space where Amit and Adrian et al can collaborate with artists in a sort of developmental workflow.
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We’ve reached the end of our meeting and I’m already thinking about which album I’ll bring for Amit the next time we see each other. I’m not sure that I fully grasp what Good Company Productions is all about, but this meeting has left me inspired with the knowledge that it’s about building community, creating culture, and sharing good times in all the best ways. And it’s about bringing music to folks’ ears. How lucky for us that Amit likes to jam, and that he and Adrian had the creativity and tenacity to uncover the people and means that would allow him to do it from here.
GOOD COMPANY PRODUCTIONS
44 GAUKEL ST, KITCHENER