Video: Cody Canada & The Departed go “Office Space” on DVD player, prepare to release album June 21
Anybody out there gotta a case of the Mondays? Perhaps then you can take solace in the debut short film featuring Oklahoma-Texas red-dirt band Cody Canada and The Departed.
Taking a cue from the 1999 cult favorite “Office Space,” the band gives their defunct DVD player the same treatment the printer got in “Office Space” to the tune of Geto Boys’ “D— It Feels Good to Be a Gangsta.” (If the title wasn’t enough of a hint, there’s some band language in the song.)
The new band featuring former Cross Canadian Ragweed singer/guitarist Cody Canada and bassist Jeremy Plato are doing more than beating up broken electronics: The group launched pre-sales Friday for its new album “This Is Indian Land” at www.thedepartedmusic.com.
“This Is Indian Land” pays tribute to Oklahoma songwriters and will be available in stores on Tuesday, June 21st.
With musical roots planted deeply in the red dirt of Oklahoma, Canada has been dreaming of paying homage to his heroes on record for years. This project is a very personal one for Canada, who made the move to the musical hotbed of Stillwater at the age of 16.
“It was like the greatest place on earth,” Cody says in a news release. “I met Tom Skinner, Scott Evans, Bob Childers, Jimmy LaFave, the Red Dirt Rangers and they were all playing this really, really good music. I didn’t even know what red dirt was until somebody told me. I got turned on to it all and it’s stayed with me ever since.”
For the last 15 years, as front man for Cross Canadian Ragweed, Canada has helped to bring Stillwater’s red dirt music to the masses. Ragweed sold more 1 million albums, played 220 plus dates a year and founded the annually sold-out Red Dirt Round Up music festival. The festival created a stir and landed on the cover of the New York Times Life section with a headline that read, “Alt Country has a little Red Dirt under its nails.”
When Ragweed came off the road late last year, Canada’s desire to record the tribute record once again moved to the forefront. So he pulled together an A-list group of musicians, headed into the studio and The Departed was born. Comprised of Canada on vocals and guitar, long time bandmate Plato on bass and vocals, Texas guitar wizard Seth James, Yukon drummer Dave Bowen and Tulsan Steve Littleton on B3 organ and keys. The lineup gave the album an eclectic range with three lead vocalists and two lead guitar players, while Bowen on drums and Littleton on B3 organ added a jam band vibe to the studio recording.
“This Is Indian Land” is a 15-track deep album, loaded with well-known songs including: Kevin Welch’s “Kickin’ Back In Amsterdam” and “True Love Never Dies,” JJ Cale’s “If You’re Ever In 
Oklahoma,” Rock and Roll Hall-of-Famer Leon Russell’s “Home Sweet Oklahoma” and the lead single, Randy’s Pease’s “Ballad Of Rosalie.”
The album was recorded late last year at Yellow Dog Studios in Austin, Texas.
“Speaking for Jeremy and I — just because I’ve known him for so long — these are tunes that we wanted people to hear since the get-go,” Canada told me in an interview around the New Year. “These are the songs that taught us how to do it, and we finally got ‘em nailed down. Jeremy’s singing and I’m singing and “We’re sharing the dirt with people.”
He told me that he feels good be bringing an album with songs from “all the Okie artists that we grew up listening to, the people that showed us how to be good people and good musicians and just the Oklahoma way of treating people and being people.”
With the new album set for release and a calendar full of tour dates, Cody Canada and The Departed are ready to hit the road and do what they do best, play. The band will be skipping around Texas the next few weeks and return to Oklahoma to continue a Memorial Day weekend tradition with Music & Mayhem IV in Eufaula.
“I can’t sleep at night,” says Canada in the release. “It keeps me awake, not from worry but from excitement. We’re just ready to tear it up.”
See the band’s spring tour dates after the break.
Cody Canada & The Departed spring 2011 tour dates
5/13 Cypress, TX – Cypress Saloon
5/14 Fort Worth, TX – Mingus Lake Ranch
5/20 Uvalde, TX – Lone Star Saloon
5/21 Addison, TX – Addison Arts & Music Festival
5/28 Eufaula, OK – Music & Mayhem IV
6/3&4 Lajitas, TX – Fest Out West
6/9 Corpus Christi, TX – Brewster Street Ice House
6/10 Abilene, TX – Lucky Mule Saloon
6/11 Austin, TX – Nutty Brown Café
6/15 Little Rock, AR – Stickyz Rock n Roll Chicken Shack
6/16 Fort Smith, AR – Neumeier’s Rob Room & Beer Garden
6/17 Manhattan, KS – Longhorns Saloon
6/18 North Platte, NE – Sculley’s Shooters
6/19 Kansas City, MO – The Beaumont
6/24 Fort Worth, TX – Billy Bob’s Texas
6/25 Luling, TX – Luling Watermelon Thump
7/3 Fayetteville, AR – Osage Creek Amphitheare
7/9 New Braunfels, TX – Whitewater Amphitheatre
8/5 Gillette, WY – Jakes Tavern
8/6 Denver, CO – Grizzly Rose
8/10 Salt Lake City, UT – The State Room
8/19 Wichita Falls, TX – Shrinefest
8/20 Pleasanton, TX – 46th Annual Cowboy Homecoming
-BAM
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