Scott Wilson’s Saturday Night Live surprise

Local singer-songwriter and cinematographer Scott Wilson says he was taken by surprise when Saturday Night Live recently did a parody version of Marc Cohn’s “Walking in Memphis” video in a musical sketch called “Walking in Staten” starring Cohn along with Pete Davidson and Method Man. “I saw [the SNL spoof] this morning without any notice,” says Wilson, who edited Cohn’s original “Walking in Memphis” video. “Somewhat of a shockingly pleasant surprise. Looks like it’s getting a lot of press, from what I can tell. It’s on the front page of rollingstone.com for example, among many other websites. The editing and cinematography style are very similar to the original video, which brought Marc Cohn to the public’s attention in 1991 when it was originally released. It hit number 13 on the Billboard charts, according to one of the articles I read this morning.”

Wilson edited the original Cohn video around May 1991 at a West Los Angeles edit facility called Selluloid. “I’m not totally sure on the dates, though. There is a semi-amusing music related story regarding having to leave the Marc Cohn offline edit session on the last day of minor final revisions for the video because of a previous commitment at a Napa Valley High School talent show at which I had agreed to appear before I took the editing job. [It was] to be a celebrity judge with the guitar player of VFX, a band I was in at the time.”

Aside from VFX, whose album The Next Step hit number one on the Imports Chart in England’s Kerrang Magazine, Wilson has also played with alt-rockers Cruel World and folk band the Gandi Method, as well as with fellow Gandi vet Cathryn Beeks. As a videographer and film editor, he’s worked on music videos, concert films, and documentaries. When it came time to shoot his own video for the song “Coffeehouse 101” from his CD Kaleidoscope’s End, he says, “We ended up with around 50 performers in [my] video, many of them local, each one lip-synching a different line from the song.” Footage was shot at Lestat’s, Twiggs, the Hot Monkey Love Café, and other local spots. Cameo appearances included Gregory Page, Dave Howard, Bart Mendoza (The Shambles), Mark DeCerbo (Rockola, The Steely Damned) and more — a who’s who of local talent.

Although he’s had a few “brushes with fame,” Wilson says, “To the best of my knowledge, ‘Walking in Staten’ is the first parody of any of my music videos, except for ‘Rockstar’ by Nickelback, which is almost identical to ‘Coffeehouse 101.’ I’ve also directed, shot, and edited music videos for a few local bands, [including] Podunk Nowhere, and also Sven-Erik Seaholm and Brooke Mackintosh. I recorded the Podunk Nowhere song with my Pro Tools studio edit system at Sound City in the San Fernando Valley, probably in 2015. Nirvana’s Nevermind album was recorded in the main studio next door in the early ‘90s. I understand that my studio guitar room, and the vocal booth for Heather in Podunk Nowhere, was going to be a jacuzzi room for producer Keith Olsen at [renowned recording studio] Goodnight L.A. The early Pro Tools studio right next to the main studio was also featured in the film Sound City, directed by Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters and Nirvana. My studio was a couple of doors down from Goodnight L.A., on the right, just past the restrooms.”

An expanded edition of Kaleidoscope’s End was released last year, featuring a total of 40 songs, including original demos for eight of the thirteen tunes, and three 16-track analog demos for compositions that didn’t make the final album.