The Rembis Report and Other Fascinating Topics - Volume LXXII

You know that one song?

You know that one song?

It is the one that you like, that nobody else seems to know. That you have heard before, but you don't know where. And it is one of your favorite songs. You may not even know who wrote it, who plays it, or who sings it. You may not even know all the words. But it is that one song that stays with you. It is yours.

It is not a popular song. If you played it for somebody they might say, "Oh, that's nice," but they won't love it the way you do. That is okay, because it must not be for them. It must only be for you.

I have a song like that. Listen. Then come back and read the rest.

Marvellous (lectrix mix) by Green Lemon feat. Oliver from the album Spring Lounge 2010Released 2010-04-02 on Manifold RecordsDownload on iTunes: https://geo....

Something about this tune hits me in a weird way. I swear I used to hear it when I was a kid. Then, I remember driving around in north Montana, where there were only a couple radio stations, and I would hear it there, too, once in a while.

But that is impossible. This song is only around twelve years old. My recollections from the late '90's in Montana and as a kid in the '70's and '80's have to be wrong.

Yet, there it is. A song I remember but can't say why.

Maybe the guitar riff is similar to another song, or the singer turned a phrase the same way as somebody else did once. Whatever the case, once I discovered this really cool tune, I had to hear more from the artist.

I listen to a lot of soft jazz and vaporwave mixes on YouTube, and its algorithm knows me all too well, suggesting and playing track after track of things I rarely pass on. So, when this one showed up, I checked for information about the artist, but there was nothing. The obligatory lines of general information about the video were completely missing from the page, and still are. This is the only video I have ever found on YouTube to have everything completely void. There is no indication of who uploaded it when, and there are no comments, no statistics on plays, nothing. So, it became a mystery to solve.

Searching the album cover "Spring Lounge . . . sounds like sunshine 2010" led me to an Amazon page for this compilation album confirming that the song was Marvellous by Green Lemon featuring Oliver.

Marvelous is spelled wrong, but who am I to judge? I just want to hear more Green Lemon! So, I find the one and only Green Lemon album that exists.

I can pay to stream it, but I like to listen while I drive, so I find the one and only used copy available on eBay, for about the price of a cup of good coffee, and I order it.

I pop the CD in and listen. These guys sound nothing like the Green Lemon I was looking for. The album is a jazz/funk/rock fusion. Pretty good stuff. I like the CD, and I am happy to have it, but those gentle riffs and the singer with the deep, brooding baritone are missing. This must be earlier work. So, I do more research.

Everything I could find about Green Lemon was scattered all over the internet. There were links to a Green Lemon website that never loaded and another obscure bio page that was last updated in 2006. Sounded legit. The names of the band members matched up with what was on the dust jacket. They came out of Fort Collins, Colorado and did some touring, it said. But the album they cut was never mentioned and there was nothing to indicate what happened to the band.

I kept searching. There were no other articles about them, no live sets, no interviews, and nothing more recent than that bio page. They were ghosts. They must have broken up. But even when I searched for the individual musicians - nothing. No Facebook pages, no Twitter, no Instagram. Just one MySpace page, practically defunct with the names of five of their songs on it. That's it.

So, I started searching YouTube for Green Lemon/Oliver and found about ten songs, with that same cool crooner who sings Marvellous. I listened to all of them, and put them into a playlist, and if you have been listening and let Marvellous play out, that is what you are listening to now.

But who is Oliver, where is the Green Lemon band, and how did their sound change so much from the album with the penguins on the cover?

Maybe Green Lemon only partially split, was now only a couple original members, and they hooked up with Oliver somewhere. Maybe this Green Lemon has nothing to do with the Green Lemon who cut the penguin cover album. But why no other music or internet presence?

I decided to search for Oliver.

Turns out there are a bunch of vocalists all over the internet who simply go by the name Oliver.

So, who are all of these Oliver guys? What is the big secret? Are they not using their last names because they are all Hitlers, Dahmers and Mansons? That shouldn't be such a big deal. It hasn't hurt Marilyn Manson's career.

The first Oliver I found was the guy who sang Good Morning Starshine in 1969. It is not him. Then there is a DJ duo consisting of Vaughn Oliver and Oliver Goldstein who call themselves Oliver because, well, I guess that kind of makes sense. They produced the album Full Circle, which is some pretty smooth hip-hop dance music.

But none of these are the Oliver who sings with Green Lemon.

All of my searching for Green Lemon/Oliver kept leading me back to chill lounge compilations by another producer named Frank Doberitz who uses the aliases of Frank Borrell and Simply Free. Turns out that he has collaborated with Oliver a couple of times. Listening to those tracks confirm that he is the same Oliver that sang with Green Lemon.

I only found five songs (all on the playlist) that were Green Lemon/Oliver collaborations. The rest of the Oliver stuff was done with Frank Doberitz, but once again, no albums, no tours, no live sets, no history, barely an internet presence for Oliver, but at least I got his last name - Schlolaut.

So, now I am searching all over for Oliver Schlolaut and aside from the aforementioned tracks, the dude is an absolute specter. All the tracks I already knew about are featured on dozens of both obscure and well-known music websites, but that is all there is. I found one website where somebody set up a page for his music and there is only clip art of a microphone in a gray box for the artist's photo frame.

There is an Oliver Schlolaut YouTube page that was set up in 2012 with 27 subscribers and absolutely no content. I subscribed anyway. Fingers crossed for new music! This is the only thing on that page, the only photo anywhere on the internet pertaining to Oliver Schlolaut, other than a Facebook page for a young German kid who likes soccer and is probably not him.

So, who is Oliver Schlolaut? Where is he? Is this really him?

At this point I have way more questions than answers, so I can only surmise that he must be the coolest dude to ever walk the planet! He is that guy that is just kind of always around, but nobody knows where he came from, but everybody likes talking to him. He makes references to obscure happenings that he may or may not have been involved in, might have done something on the edge of legality, but just won't say exactly what it was or who he was with at the time, so he isn't a snitch. He has been everywhere and knows a lot of people that you absolutely also know or have definitely heard of. No matter what out of the way restaurant, waterfall, or dance club that you visited on the other side of the world, he has vast knowledge of it and will convince you that he has absolutely been there and done that, too. He wears sunglasses at all times, day and night. Never has to buy a drink because everybody always buys him one. He carries no cash. No identification, either. Nothing in his pockets. He is no bum. He is always clean and freshly dressed. Could pass for any age between 30 and 50. He is always ready to go, up for an adventure, happy to tag along, and winds up in the recording studio once in a while, ready to lay down a track.

He could be a CIA or MI6 operative. But he can't say.

I searched death notices, prison records, subpoenas, every public document I could find. NOTHING.

Then I discovered a couple more tracks on Soundcloud that are definitely him, where he collaborated with other artists, and were uploaded between six and nine years ago. They sound pretty cool and have glowing reviews. The most recent stuff I could find was done with Frank Doberitz in 2014 but uploaded to the web in 2018.

Where is Oliver Schlolaut now? What is the real story with Green Lemon?

I can't say, but if I get any more information, I will be sure to let you know. There is a lot of great music out there. Millions of unknown songs by awesome artists who we may never get to listen to.

That song of yours, that one you like so much that nobody else cares about, enjoy it, and share it. Because even though it might not be that great to everybody, you just might find one of the other 27 people who think it is really cool and will share your enthusiasm for that lost artist.

I may never find another Green Lemon/Oliver Schlolaut song, but if I am lucky, maybe one of them will find me.

Thanks for reading.

If you are new to the Rembis Report and would like to read any of the previous issues, PLEASE CLICK HERE to access the archives. To read it from the beginning, PLEASE GET A COPY of The Rembis Report: An Observation.