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LOST & FOUND: The Album​.​.​.​The Story

by LOST & FOUND

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homeslicet I am so excited for this!!! Incredible music made by incredibly talented and awesome people! What a great story! BNB got me thru university at Lakehead!
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1.
Standby 03:31
The difficulty with you is you ignore the light And focus on the darkness and refuse to even fight I can show you to the surface I can help you through this life No more hesitation and no more useless fights When you opened my eyes onto one thousand skies I was overwhelmed with knowing just what I held inside You can put me in the darkness You can take away my light Cause now I’ve seen the future and I’m ready for the fight And it’s hard to breathe when your life is on standby And it’s hard to see when your life is on standby And it’s hard to know when your life is on standby And it’s hard to feel when your life in on standby Mike Filipowitsch - vocals (2005) Audrey Bankley - vocals (2005) Jeremy Little - bass, drum programming keys & synths (2020) Aaron Goldstein - pedal steel (2020) "The lyrics from this tune were a major launching pad for everything. I was floored by how these 15 year old words made so such much sense now! I always knew this was the opening track and I wanted a moody intro to begin the journey. Audrey’s voice is insanely beautiful. I reached out to her after all this time. She told me she never forgot about this tune. I wanted this tune to be as smooth as Audrey’s voice but still pump!" - Jeremy Little "After hearing the synth driven music that Jeremy had put together, I remember being instantly excited to put some melody and words to this – and I also remember it happening quick. This was inspired by me listening to the band the Stars quite a bit at that time and I knew that I wanted a call and response type of thing. As for the lyrics, it is funny how they really seem to resonate with the current global situation. I know that at the time, there was for sure a lot of potential transition and change on the horizon, and this was someone foreshadowing for things to come for me. I love how this turned out so much." - Mike Filipowitsch
2.
Pains, I’ve had many But I’ve learned to walk them off And yeah, I could say plenty But, I’ve learned when to cut off And I walk my own direction In tune with my reflection Time, it is the healer I’ve seen it work before Eye’s open to solution I learned to let it go Cause I’ve walked my own direction In tune with my reflection Yeah, I’ve walked my own direction to you When your pain it stops hurting And you’ve learned to let it go I’ll be waiting for your heartbeat Whichever way it goes Cause you walk your own direction IN tune with your reflection Yeah, you walk your own direction to me Mike Filipowitsch – vocals & acoustic guitar (2005) Jeremy Little – bass, drum programming and keys (2020) Aaron Goldstein – pedal steel (2020) "The lyrics again! (so inspiring)...and ……….The hypnotic finger picking acoustic screamed simple grove. I played around with drums for days until I landed on the final pattern. I remember tracking the bass super late at night (1am ish) and thinking it was terrible. The next morning, I listened back and was totally stoked. I asked Aaron to play what he felt on this and when I got his track back I wasn’t’ feeling it and shelved the tune. I came back to this tune a month later and decided to create a bridge feel to the 3rd verse to add some depth. At this point, I re-listened to the steel and re-found the magic." - Jeremy Little "First, I was so surprised when I heard this on my first live listen of the record with Jer. Of all the tunes, this is one of them that I had forgotten about for a long time. I had this tendency to write things with not much of a chorus during this time, and I’m not sure why. So, I simply adore how Jer added depth to that closing verse of the song – gave me goosebumps the first time. I still love the words, and they still hold truth for me now. " - Mike Filipowitsch
3.
Postcards 03:43
Hey now, what can I do? With this time that I’ve given, should I come back for you? And all you’ve been, is an excuse I’m avoiding a place that I never wanted too Avoiding a place that I never wanted too Was pleased to meet you, and I knew we’d meet again I got tired of sending postcards that never found their way to you And this service has got me down And know I’m back to tell you how much I owe to you How could I fall, fall in love with you? If it didn’t work the last time why would I put myself… Through the pains of this with you? Guess I’m betting on the longshot I could spend my time with you Betting on the longshot I could spend my time with you Was pleased to meet you, and I knew we’d meet again I got tired of sending postcards that never found their way to you And this service has got me down… And know I’m back to tell you how much I owe to you How much I owe to you Mike Filipowitsch – vocals & acoustic (2005) Kieran Adams – drums (2005) Jeremy Little – bass (2020) Aaron Goldstein -pedal steel (2020) Jeff Heisholt – organ (2020) Carlin – piano and backup vox (2020) Mike O'brien & Neil Quinn– back up vox (2020) "The lyrics always sparked the start. This was the first tune I tracked on in 2020 and the first I sent off to someone else to track on. I asked Aaron to do the country thing he does so well (thinking it's what Mike would want to hear) and he did. I wanted some back up vox and Zeus did their thing!" - Jeremy Little "I remember writing this on Jer’s couch (which I was also sleeping on at the time) in Toronto. I’m sure it has something to do with someone I met that slipped away, but more importantly, for me it was somewhat of my first attempt at trying to reach for a different feel, to not shy away from things not related to what or how I was normally expected to write. The addition of Aaron on the pedal steel is amazing. It's always how it was envisioned. I really like the backing vocals, it adds to the feeling and story – you know, of regret, guilt and general missed opportunities." - Mike Filipowitsch
4.
Sitting all alone in my school my of stone that keeps me from my home I put a kettle on the stove and look towards the fields overgrown You know I came here to make things alright Fade away from the lights that shine from the town The farmer in the fields he never feels all alone he’s got his family by his side And he looks towards his crops because he knows they will yield all he needs I heard he never even questions what it is that separates him from the lights that shine from the town As planes fly overhead, I wonder where they’ve been or where they are going And if I could grab on to wing, I’d fly I would fly so far away You know I never stick around for too long In a matter of time, I’ll be gone away from this town Still the farmer he sits quiet, so rooted in the fields in which he lives And as cars drive towards the town, he wonders why they would be leaving The open fields and skies that are here What is it with the silence that we fear? So please take me home I don’t want to live alone I’m alive and living so much that it’s time that I go home To the streets and the lights that I know Will lead me to the next place I’ll call home Mike Filipowitsch – acoustic guitar & vox (2005) Jeremy Little – synths (2005) bass and drum programming (2020) Mike Obrien – acoustic & electric guitar (2020) Peter Elkas – slide guitar (2020) "This tune was the most worked on and turned out to be one of my favourites. The demo had this finger picking acoustic which I wasn’t digging. I found another of Mikes' acoustic tracks turned off when I first reopen the session. There was this chugging palm muted acoustic track that I used to define the direction of the song. It sounded like a train rolling by and i wanted that vibe to be the groove. The original atmospherics synths I tracked in 2005 really seem to jive and then I programmed a traditional train drum beat. To accentuate more of that chugging acoustic, I tracked my bass with a similar vibe but with a lead instrument intention. I originally ask O'brien to track a guitar solo for the outro, but sent back the electric rhythm you hear now. I was a pleasantly surprised. I was now hearing this guitarmony slide outro and that is all the direction I gave Elkas. He killed it!! Mixing this song was hard. Carlin and I were having a hard time getting the original acoustic to sit in the mix right. Obrien tracked a new version of what Mike did 15 yrs ago, but I wasn’t the same vibe. Making Mike’s original guitar work was so important me to because it had the right feel (too bad it was recorded bad) and it was recorded on Bjay’s 1920’s parlour guitar (a ton of other meaning for obvious reasons). Carlin & I massaged the shit of the guitar and ended up using it for the main section of the song and then switched to Obriens fuller acoustic sound for the outro to beef it up. With the song finally mixed a couple of times, I still felt the groove of the song was off. I ended up redoing the complete drum part in December and we remixed the tune on boxing day. To me the groove is super happening now and the vibe is alive." - Jeremy Little "Of all the songs on this recording, this is the one I play live the most, still. It holds a lot of special meaning and speaks directly to a feeling of isolation and longing that I had while living in an old schoolhouse on the outskirts of Guelph, Ontario. And Jer is right, I so remember trying to figure out just what the feel should be. Although this song turned up on another record of mine, this is (in my view) is the ultimate version. Elkas’ outro work is truly amazing. It is one of those moments that I am glad I was not involved in its evolution, as perhaps this may not have come to fruition in the amazing way that it did. " - Mike Filipowitsch
5.
10, 12 or 20 04:32
10,12 or 20, I can’t recall occurrences so plenty So, why count at all? If you could just look, listen, or feel anything at all, I’d be so happy But you never call And I’ve gone for days, with nothing at all I walked down your street expecting your call And it played on my mind, the illusions of sound Wondering why you would know, where I’d be found Mike Filipowitsch – acoustic, electric guitar & vox (2005) Kieran Adams – drums (2005) Jeremy Little – synth (2005) & bass (2020) Jeff Heisholt – rhodes & organ (2005) Scott Farmer – synth solo & back up vox (2005) "This tune was fully tracked and sort of mixed in 2005. I ended redoing the bass because the old bass had all kinds of pops and crackles. I stripped the song down and rebuilt it up with what I thought would accentuate the moody vibe we'd been going for. I love what Kieran did on this and Scott slayed the synth solo." - Jeremy Little "10, 12, or 20 – you many wonder why I picked those numbers and/or what the heck it means. Well, just think of it this way, when things go wrong or the same mistakes keep happening, you kind of lose count. Hearing this song, always reminds me of that. A good remix of a song we had a lot of fun creating back in the day. "- Mike Filipowitsch
6.
Little things that mattered before Left like the wind through the door Pictures of sad days expired Can you see how I am wired ? Programmed to head down the dark road Licensed to feel nothing good But the passes I had I’ve relinquished And my youth has been reborn Lighten the load and feel blessed Because your mind is relaxed and untangled And I’ll further my cause for the future That I may bring these things to you Mike Filipowitsch – acoustic, electric guitar & vox (2005) Jeremy Little– bass and electric guitars (2020) Gavin Maguire – drums (2020) Jeff Heisholt - organ (2005) , wurlitzer & moog (2020) "The only tune that is just the 4 BNB guys. This one was hard to make fit with rest of the tunes. For weeks I played around with drum programming but realized that this tune needed a real drummer. After strong arming Gavin to put garage band on his phone, I shared the session where I programmed a little drum idea. Gavin took it and blew it up!! I worked with his programmed beat until he came back to Toronto from Windsor. I got him into Pete’s studio where he replaced the part he wrote with a real killer performance." - Jeremy Little "This is the second song that without this recording I am sure would have been lost forever. I was both surprised and super happy when I first heard this. I love what Gav did with the drums, and I love what Jer did to add some depth to the guitar. In all honesty, these are some of my favorite lyrics on this record. Although it is super autobiographical, I think we can all relate to much of what is said in the song, and I like that. I don’t know what else to say accept that, I secretly play this track a lot at home – great job on this one." - Mike Filipowitsch
7.
For years and years we let it go We didn’t talk about the pain, we didn’t go there anymore… The light that shined fades to black And if we’re not carefully, we will never get it back So reach your arms to the sea And wash your hands clean The cold had come, and the cold had gone In its warmth it brought a radio song Whose words would play in every parking lot And remind of the wounds I never forgot So, we drive away from the sun Towards the night that had come So please, Say you never, never leave So please Stay forever, forever near Mike Filipowitsch – acoustic, electric guitar & vox (2005) Jeremy Little – synths (2005 & 2020) & drum programming (2020) Jeff Heisholt – synth (2020) Aaron Goldstein – pedal steel (2020) I love this tune! I wanted to make this as moody as possible to play with lyrics. I first dialed in this effect on Mike’s original acoustic. The way it wobbled inspired the rest. I asked Jeff to lay down as much texture as possible. He tracked over 10 parts for me choose from and I edited them suit my vision. I also love the drums I programmed. Kind of like weird heavy metal toms. When mixing this songs Carlin added this heavy plate reverb to the pedal steel. This gave it a very lush warm feeling. Carlin and I ended up adding this same plate reverb to the pedal steel in Standby & Time. I feel this sound really brings the record together." - Jeremy Little "This is a song with so many different versions and vibes, and this is one that I had mostly forgotten about recording with Jer back then. It is a super personal tune that deals with some heavy moments in my life. I love listening to it like this, it takes me places. I always felt like this song was a little movie, instantly transports me back to those moments. I think Jer captured that mood well." - Mike Filipowitsch
8.
I know I look different, but I swear I’m the same It took some convincing to remember my name It so good to see you, it’s been such a while Now, you are right here beside me, like nothing has changed Has time weathered the feelings we had? Or am I still thinking of something that you never knew Was this, ever once true? It’s something reoccurring it comes in my sleep I have no control; I feel like a creep
 Because I know that your taken and you’ll never be mine But I can’t stop this feeling no matter what time…has passed Please let this feeling subside Lord knows I don’t need this so why? Am I convinced on believing in something that you never knew? If you don’t mind you still have a place in my heart And time may fade, but I still think of you just the same If you don’t mind you still have a place in my heart And time may fade, I still think of you just the same I still think of you just the same… And I’m ok with that… Today Mike Filipowitsch –electric guitar & vox (2005) Kieran Adams – drums (2005) Jeremy Little – bass (2020) Jeff Heisholt – organ (2005) Scott Farmer – piano & back up vox (2005) "This tune was fully tracked and sort of mixed in 2005. I ended redoing the bass. I felt that the new bass tones I was getting was helping define the sound of the record. I especially love Mike's solo. It was his first take and I will always feel that first take magic when I hear it. Mike plugged directly into my old sound card but Carlin re-amped in the mix to add grit." - Jeremy Little "I simply love the brutal honesty of the lyrics in this song. I had usually, up until this point, avoided writing about love or related topics in songs because I didn’t think that people really came to BNB shows to hear about that so much or so directly. I guess in a sense I thought it was too tacky. I even remember there is a song on By the Door, the opening track where I went as far as to change a line from broken my heart, to taken me down. Here I was sort of learning how to be comfortable with writing about that sort of thing. Jer cleaned this one up nice, and I have really enjoyed listening to it once again." - Mike Filipowitsch
9.
Woke up at 4am this morning Just to meet the dark A shimmer of light held, and I sat in high street park Nothing changing much It’s still the same as it was To live in a better place than this one Why does it always seem that the best fade with the summer? Shades will keep fading
 until they bend into no colour And there were ideas, but not a thing was done And still things ain’t changing much but everything is one To live in a better place than this one Mike Filipowitsch – acoustic guitar & vox (2005) Jeff Heisholt – piano & organ (2020) "I always knew this was the closer. For a long time I considered leaving it just Mike. But then I thought of the classic Mike & Jeff combo…… I love how the recording kind of sucks and there is a bit of back ground noise. This song has always been close to my heart because it is about Thunder Bay. Every time I hear it, I’m transported back to high street park." - Jeremy Little "This track is somewhat the ‘odd man out’. What I mean is that is what not from the same period. I actually wrote this way back in the mid 90’s when BNB was first starting out. I had it sitting around for years, even before I showed the guys. At the time I thought it was too country like, and not the style that we were doing…so I thought I might be laughed at. I love the sentiment, and it takes me right back to the feeling of isolation I often felt while living in the north. I was young when I wrote these words, but there are some that I am still proud of. I like the decision to keep this pretty raw and bare, as this is definitely the emotion of the song." - Mike Filipowitsch

about

LOST & FOUND: The Album...The Story

I truly believe that everyone has a COVID quarantine story to tell, the following is mine. I hope in 20 years from now my (now) 6 year old daughter, Lola will read this and say to herself, “Oh, so that was what my dad was doing with his headphones on during that time we stayed home, wore masks and never hugged anyone we didn’t live with”.

For a little context, here is my backstory. If someone were to ask me what I do, I would say “I play the bass”. Even though it is not my full time job, music is a huge part of my identity. Since 1995, I have had the honor and privilege of making music, touring the world playing music and recording music with; Burt Neilson Band, Peter Elkas, Full White Drag, Sean Macdonald, Andrew Rodriguez, Spooky Reuben, Everything All The Time, Jason Collett, Anna Eggae, Terra Lightfoot and Jake Clemons. I released my own solo album OLMER in 2005. I also worked as a FOH/tour manager for ZEUS, Jason Collett, Bahamas, DIANA, Amy Millan and The Arkells. For the last 8 years, I‘ve played bass exclusively with Peter Elkas and my musical life mates Jeff Heisholt & Gavin Maguire, who I have known since we met in university in Thunder Bay and started playing together as Burt Neilson Band nearly 25 years ago. Peter Elkas Band played our last gig on March 5, 2020 which Gavin says was “the best he ever played”, who knew it would be our last...

The following week, the world changed. Moment by moment, more news was revealed about how this new virus would affect our daily lives. My wife Amy’s sister lives in Manhattan with my brother-in-law Blake and my two nieces, Ruby and Sylvia. By the second week of March, NYC’s COVID case count was much higher than Toronto’s and there were rumblings of a shelter in place lockdown. Schools and offices were closing and with March Break about to begin, Amy suggested they come to Toronto, “to see what happens”. So, on Thursday March 12th they packed up their car with bottled water and canned goods, threw my nieces in and fled the city that night. By Friday, March 13th lockdowns were being announced and the Canada/U.S border was to be closed. I will never forget the look of anxiety and then relief on Amy’s face while she waited to hear that her sister (sidebar…I have never known siblings to have a closer bond) crossed the border and was back on Canadian soil. So here we were, one week before my 43rd birthday the world was locking down and my household of three just grew to a full house of seven. Rooms were repurposed and routines were modified. Our dining room became an office, living room a bedroom and the basement a classroom. What started as a week, turned into two families quarantining together for 6 months. They ended up staying until Labour Day! However, this story is not about the memories we made and the challenges we faced as 7 people in a 3 bedroom home, but rather how this quarantine bubble was the catalyst of this album. So a big thanks to Rebecca, Blake, Ruby and Sylvia!

March turned to April, and then to May, the loss of making music with my mates had started to weigh on me. Elkas had been telling me to buy an iRIG so I could plug my bass into my phone to record videos with better sound that he could then edit with his own videos to make live performances. As I waited for him to send me tracks, I decided to satisfy my musical itch by opening GarageBand on my iPhone 6 for the first time. Within days, I was making karaoke covers of Sam & Dave tunes with whatever instruments I had around and the sounds from Garage Band. I thought that I was getting pretty good at it, but I needed more than just karaoke covers.

By late May, the spring weather finally arrived in Toronto. In search of bikes and scooters and things to keep kids busy, I started clearing out the space under the back of my house. There I found an old milk crate with random cords and cables. I used to have a home studio where I made countless recordings, unfortunately, my basement had several floods and I ended packing it up and moving different pieces of gear to friend’s studios around town. At the bottom of this crate, covered in dirt, I found my old Cubase 4 music software license USB key. Like a lost treasure, I held it in my hand and thought, “What can I do this?” My old PC that used to run my music studio no longer worked so I started to look for software discs from the early 2000’s in hopes of loading Cubase onto my iMAC, but no luck. I ended up speaking to tech support and downloaded a copy which was shockingly easy for a 20 year old program. They told me there shouldn’t be any problems, as long as I had my license key, which I did, and sure enough it worked! But now what?

Around the same time, I went looking for a certain album that I knew wasn’t available online, but had owned on CD. I never found it, but I did find spindles of DVDs. In my home studio days, I never had an external hard drive to back up my files. I used to burn my files to DVD to back up what I was working on. I started to load them to my iMAC to see what I had, and boy oh boy I had a lot of forgotten gems. After a few days of discovery, I realized there was an albums worth of Mike Filipowitsch songs. Mike was the guitarist and one of singers from Burt Neilson Band. Through the late 90’s and early 2000’s, we crisscrossed the county over 20 times playing over a thousand shows. In 2005/2006, he would come over to my place to demo some of his new songs for an undetermined project. Mike ended up moving to Thunder Bay, then Nunavut and eventually Taiwan. Life got busy and we haven’t spoken to each other in a decade. This material was totally forgotten about…until now.

I had finally found a project to scratch my musical itch. I thought to myself, “What if I finish Mike’s album without him knowing and then send it to him in Taiwan as a finished product? What a great gift! ” I was totally charged by this idea. As I spent more time with his songs, I became more and more inspired by his 15 year old lyrics and how they relate to these current COVID lockdown times. Mike had written songs about isolation, reflection, healing and literally life being on “standby”, (a duet sang with Audrey Bankley). I truly believe his songs had been waiting to be found. There were a total of 11, most were Mike’s voice with acoustic guitar. A few were more realized with drums by Kieran Adams and keyboards by Jeff Heisholt & Scott Farmer. I was excited to get the chance to see what I could add.

There were many challenges, I had no studio gear or monitor speakers. My computer didn’t even have proper input converters. First, I tried plugging my bass into the iRig and then into my computer to record right to Cubase 4, but it sounded terrible. I was getting better bass tones tracking to Garage Band on my iPhone, so I started dumping mixes to Dropbox and uploading them to my phone to record bass and bounce those wave files back to my computer to use in Cubase. Cumbersome, but it was working and surprisingly sounding good. I tracked my moog rogue the same way and then programmed some drums and synths too. This was all going on after 10pm in my convenience store headphones. The kids were asleep, Blake was working at the dining room table and Amy and Rebecca were hanging out. I would track until I got tired, thinking, “this is terrible…what am I doing?” But then the next day, I would listen back and there would be a little magic there. This went on for a few weeks.

By the end of June, I narrowed down the album to the nine songs that I thought were really working. I was starting to believe that something special was happening. Was I drinking my own juice? I decided it was time to share a song with Pete to see what he thought. He loved it and he encouraged me to keep going! Over the next few weeks, I took it as far as I could on my own. It now needed drums, guitars, keyboards and then some. I reached out to friends for help. I would email them the mixes and they would send back their tracks. Over the summer months, Gavin tracked drums and Elkas laid down some slide guitar at Elkas’ studio. Jeff tracked keyboards at his place. Mike O’Brien added more guitars, Carlin Nicholson played piano and they were joined at their east-end studio by Neil Quinn to sing some sweet backups. Last, but not least Aaron Goldstein played pedal steel. This was especially meaningful to me, as Aaron is my cousin and this family jam was talked about for some time but our schedules never seem to line up. Getting to work together was another way this project feels like serendipity.

By fall, I realized that this project had become bigger and better than I ever expected. The tracking was complete. Now, I felt that in order to give Mike something really special, it needed to be mixed in a proper studio. I enlisted Carlin Nicholson to mix and give Mike’s songs the treatment they so rightfully deserved. Over the winter months, Carlin added his magic touch and brought some cohesiveness to the album. Meanwhile, Mike is living in Taiwan with no idea his album is complete.

It is now a year into the pandemic and ten months since the lost recordings were found. It is time to let Mike in on this little secret…

credits

released December 3, 2021

Lyrics & Music by Mike Filipowitsch
Except "Standby" music by Jeremy Little
Story by Jeremy Little
Cover art design and video by Mary O'Connell

Produced by Jeremy Little (Toronto, ON)
Mixed by Carlin Nicholson at PineShip studio (Toronto, ON)
Mastered by Philip Shaw Bova at Bova Lab (Ottawa, ON)

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LOST & FOUND Toronto, Ontario

LOST & FOUND is singer/songwriter Mike Filipowitsch and musician/producer Jeremy Little

Preview the first single "Standby"
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