Scott Joseph Colan

Scott Joseph Colan, age 56 years of Haddon Heights, NJ passed away May 30, 2023. He is survived by his devoted wife for 20 years, Kristin M. Olson and sons Charles and Marshall, at home. He is the son of the late Bernard J Colan and leaves his dear mother, Anne (nee Kennedy) as well as his sisters, Kelly (Dominic ) DeRosa and Dawn (Julian) Mason; and brother, Shawn (Mary) Colan. Also survived by his mother and father in law, Camille and Arthur Olson; brothers in law, John, James and Matthew, (Elizabeth) Olson and many nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews.
Like a lot of creative types who push the envelope artistically in many different, strange directions, Scott Colan often seemed like he came from a different world than the rest of us. And while Scott might have hoped you'd believed that, it is not the case. Scott was born in Portsmouth Naval Hospital in Portsmouth, Va., on July 26, 1966. If you knew Scott, you might find it hard to imagine he ever lived anywhere other than New Jersey, but he spent the early part of his life in Virginia. (Scott also lived in Portland, OR long before it was cool, attending college there in the mid '80s.) Scott was a Navy brat who as a young child would throw pieces of chicken out of his playpen and into the bay so the crabs would feed on them. Scott's parents would then catch the crabs and sell them to the sailors, an example of how enterprising Scott was even as a kid. Around Christmas, Scott loved going on the USS Enterprise for holiday fun, which may explain how later in life he would turn the rock shows his band Lenola played into festive, Flaming Lips-on-a-budget, visual extravaganzas.
Family was always of the utmost importance to Scott. He remained very close to the ever-expanding Colan clan his entire life. Like every other sports fan in the Philadelphia area, Sundays meant the Eagles, and Scott could usually be found watching the big games at his parent's house with his mom, Anne and stepdad George (a Cowboys fan!?), sisters, Kelly and Dawn and brother, Shawn and their families, as well as friends he would bring with him, who immediately became part of the tribe.
As Scott was such a rabid Eagles fan, one of the worst days of his life was Jan. 19, 2003 when he attended the last football game at Veterans Stadium. On that bitter-cold day, Donovan McNabb and Co. lost the NFC Championship game to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Scott was absolutely crushed, but he found redemption 15 years later when the Eagles finally won the Super Bowl. He was beyond thrilled that they did that while he was around to witness it. As Eagles fans know, at best, that's a once in-a-lifetime thing, if you're lucky.
The most important once-in-a-lifetime event for Scott, however, had occurred the decade prior when he fell in love with and married Kristin, someone he could not only laugh with, but who could always see straight to his heart, past the sarcasm and to the sentimental sincerity Scott sometimes kept hidden from the rest of the world. Scott's love for Kristin was only rivaled by the absolute joy and happiness brought to him by his two beloved boys, Charlie and Marshall, who both inherited Scott's dominant creativity gene.
Scott had unbridled curiosity for just about everything. He not only saw things as they were and asked: "Why?" He was also a beautiful example of people who dream of things that never were and ask: "Why not?" And while most of us stop at the dreaming stage, Scott would then spring into action and let his creativity take over. He invented a mini-marimba-type percussion instrument he called the Puddledrum and adorned the wooden, shoebox-shaped drums with designs that depicted scenes from films like "The Big Lebowski" and images of country legends like Hank Williams.
Growing up in Lindenwold, Scott had many different jobs-everything from paperboy and print-shop worker to contractor and eBay seller to amusement-park character and gentlemen's club DJ, but he spent the last 22 years doing surveys and inspections for engineering/architectural firm Bach Associates, located in Haddon Heights, right down the street from where Scott, Kristin and the boys lived. In his spare time, Scott got into filmmaking and motion-graphics work, shooting, producing and editing features for Woodshop Films in Philadelphia.
Scott's most-prominent creative endeavor was music. He started going to rock concerts when he was 11 or 12 with his grade-school best friend, whose grandparents would just drop them off in Philly. In the late 80s, Scott's band, Mistress was a top draw in the same South Jersey rock clubs that just a few years earlier served as a launching pad for Bon Jovi and Cinderella. Unlike all of the other bands from that scene, Scott steered Mistress in a more adventurous direction, incorporating hip hop and humor into the mix. Spoiler alert: The world was not ready for the outside-the-box hard rock of Mistress, and the band never reached the heights of Bon Jovi and Cinderella.
Scott continued to ply his craft on the South Jersey/Philly rock scene of the early and mid 90s, serving as the bassist in the house band for the open-mic-night jams at the Galaxy in Somerdale (which found him playing everything from polka to heavy metal) and starting Love Sandwich, a group that became a regular presence at clubs like JC Dobbs on South Street and Bonnie's Roxx in Atco. During this time, Scott also became a fixture at the Kinko's in Cherry Hill, designing countless flyers, demo-tape covers and even a Love Sandwich comic strip.
Scott soon joined Lenola, one of the centerpieces of Philadelphia's heralded late 90s psychedelic-rock scene. Scott`s ambitious ideas for music and visuals were a perfect fit for Lenola, a D.I.Y. band that booked its own tours and released its own self-recorded/self-produced albums. Lenola toured nationally several times, received positive reviews from around the globe and played sold-out shows in Philly that have become the stuff of legends, with light-up outfits, Halloween masks for audience members and 3-D elements, all designed by Scott.
Scott wasn't afraid to speak his mind and reveled in argumentative discourse on any and every subject. And he would always play devil's advocate, so much so that his friends sometimes wondered if Scott was Satan himself. Scott would explain to you in great detail why your favorite band sucked, but then you would notice that he had that same group's music in his Spotify playlists. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of music, movies, television, books and more, and his tastes ranged from the high art you see in museums to the lowbrow creations you might find on the street. Scott was as comfortable talking about the classic black-and-white films he watched on Turner Classic Movies as he was the latest punk-rock band playing a bar in Philly.
While Scott's biting, sardonic, caustic sense of humor and wit were the first things you noticed when meeting him, if you spent any time with Scott, you saw how generous he was. He would do anything for his family and friends, and that included a lot of folks, since Scott seemed to know everybody. Some people will give you the shirt off their back, but when it came to Scott, chances are he designed and screen-printed that shirt as well.
The world is a much more dull and boring place without Scott Colan, but our myriad of memories of him will always be there to keep his inimitable spirit alive.
A Celebration Of Life will be held Saturday, July 1, 2023 from 4:00 to 8:00p.m. at the Gibbsboro NJ American Legion Post 371, 41 Lakeview Drive, Gibbsboro, NJ 08026. In lieu of flowers, the family would appreciate memorial donations in Scott's name to: Voorhees Animal Orphanage.