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.
Great Divide to reunite for College Days show in Stillwater
The Great Divide in 1997 (Photo by Paul B. Southerland, The Oklahoman Archives)
Influential red dirt band The Great Divide will reunite for a show in August at Stillwater’s College Days.
Mike McClure, the band’s frontman, announced the news today on Facebook:
“The great divide was invited to headline college days. We all agreed it would be fun to play a show together after 9 years. so yes, we are going to do it.”
College Days is set for Aug. 25-27 at Tumbleweed Dance Hall, Lakeview and Country Club roads in Stillwater. The annual event (which has been called College Fest in the years since the Great Divide became, well, divided) takes place in August as a sort of musical welcome back for the Oklahoma State University student body.
During last month’s Red Bull Gypsy Cafe in Stillwater, McClure told me he had recently talked to his former bandmates for the first time in nine years. McClure, Kelley Green and brothers Scotte Lester and J.J. Lester spent 10 years recording and touring together as The Great Divide.
Mike McClure
“I kept in contact with Scotte, and I was just driving home from Kansas City and thought, ‘You know what, I’m just gonna call everybody.’ ‘Cause a band breaks up and it’s like a divorce and it’s hard and then there’s bitter feelings on both sides,’” McClure said.
“Every time I’d hear the name come up, I’d have like negative feelings about it, I mean, even that long later.”
For red dirt fans like myself, the reunion show is most welcome news. The Great Divide was one of the first bands to really gain traction in their efforts to spread the red dirt sound beyond its origins in Stillwater. Artists like the recently departed Cross Canadian Ragweed, Jason Boland & the Stragglers, Stoney LaRue and many more continued the hard-touring mission to popularize the red dirt sound, which was recently chronicled for a mini-documentary by Red Bull at the two-day Gypsy Cafe event.
The Great Divide started in 1992 and self-produced two albums – “Goin’ for Broke” and “Break in the Storm” – that sold well at all their shows, according to The Oklahoman Archives.
Their albums were so popular with their fans that Rick Blackburn of Atlantic Records in Nashville stumbled onto the fact that The Great Divide’s records were outselling much bigger acts and signed the band without even seeing them live.
The group inked a contract with Atlantic and released a repackaged “Break in the Storm,” and they experienced moderate success with their Caribbean-flavored single “Pour Me a Vacation.”
After the release of “Revolutions,” the band’s momentum stalled even after a stage show at 1998′s Fan Fair (precursor of the CMA Music Festival) in Nashville. Atlantic dropped them, and The Great Divide were independent again.
In 2000, the band signed with Broken Bow Records -the indie label now best known as the home of hitmaker Jason Aldean – which released the well-liked “Afterglow: The Will Rogers Sessions.” But their next album, “Dirt and Spirit,” didn’t sell as they hoped, so the band left that label in 2001 and went back to marketing their own music. The quartet released the CD “Remain” in 2002.
McClure left The Great Divide in 2003 to start a solo career and formed The Mike McClure Band, which has continued to tour actively and has released eight albums since.
Micah Aills joined The Great Divide as the band’s new lead singer, and the group released the 2005 album “Under Your Own Sun” before eventually calling it quits.
Just a few days after I spoke with McClure in Stillwater, he wrote on his blog in his all-lowercase sort of free-verse-poetry style about sitting down for a face-to-face with his former bandmates:
time flies
and we all know it
and we’ve all seen it
and we’ve all shaken our
heads at it
but I sat down with
the great divide fellas
over a cup of coffee last week
and cut through the years
and the b.s. with one gut laugh
He wrote that it felt good to hug his friends and sincerely apologize for any hurt feelings over the choices he made and still stands by. He continued:
and I’m proud to be able to hear the name
The Great Divide again and be proud
of what we accomplished as a group
and not let the pettiness and weakness
steal an ounce of enjoyment
that everyone in that band deserves
I’m glad we can still call each other friends
And fans of the group are glad to have a reunion show they can mark on their calendars.
-BAM
What to do in Oklahoma on April 15, 2011: Dig the red dirt at the Red Bull Gypsy Cafe in Stillwater
Mike McClure
Today’s featured event:
STILLWATER – Hear more than 30 longtime players and promising newcomers on the red dirt music scene perform live starting at 7:30 tonight at four venues on or near The Strip during the Red Bull Gypsy Cafe.
Unlike most red dirt festivals, the organizers are pairing the players into on-off duos, giving the fans and players alike a singular musical experience. Some of the duet partners have known each other for years; others have never played together before.
The performances will take place at four venues on or around Washington Street (AKA The Strip): Eskimo Joe’s, Outlaws, The College Bar and Stonewall Tavern.
To read my feature on the event, click here. For more information, go to www.redbullusa.com/events, or see the Red Bull Gypsy Cafe schedule after the break.
For more events, go to www.wimgo.com.
Wednesday Video Spotlight: John Parker Millsap
In this week’s Wednesday Video Spotlight, check out this impressive performance by John Parker Millsap, 18, of Purcell, who will be playing a headlining set with red dirt mainstay Cody Canada Friday at Outlaws in Stillwater during the big Red Bull Gypsy Cafe.
John Cooper of the Red Dirt Rangers met the Purcell talent at the Tuesday Night Music Club in Cushing and told me that Millsap is “one of the finest young performer/songwriters I’ve ever seen at that age, ever.” When Red Bull tapped Cooper to organize the Gypsy Cafe, he decided to pair Millsap with Canada in one of the headlining slots, even though Canada and Milsap have never met.
The two-day Red Bull Gypsy Cafe will bring more than 30 longtime players and promising newcomers to the red dirt music movement’s birthplace of Stillwater for the filming of an online mini-documentary on Thursday at The Farm. The house may be gone, but that’s the site where the late Bob Childers, known as “the godfather of red dirt music,” once lived and turned his home into a gathering place for musicians. It is the point of origin for red dirt music, a mix of rock, country, folk and more, bluegrass, blues, Western swing and honky tonk. Red dirt is the first genre that will be chronicled for a new online docu-series called Red Bull Roots.
After the private gathering and filming session Thursday, the Red Bull Gypsy Cafe goes public Friday with a music festival at four venues on or near Washington Street, also known as The Strip. The music wills start at 7:30 p.m. Friday and play into the wee hours of Saturday morning.
Unlike most red dirt festivals, the organizers are pairing the players into duos, giving the fans and players alike a singular musical experience. For example, Cooper and fellow Rangers Ben Han and Brad Piccolo will be playing in three separate duets, with Han pairing with Jacobs, Piccolo with Skinner and Cooper with LaRue “because we have a real long history. I got Stoney his first raise, and he still crows about it.”
Judging from the schedule, the event will feature some great on-off duos, but Canada and Millsap definitely looks like a set to catch.
To read my full story on the Red Bull Gypsy Cafe, click here.
-BAM
What to do in Oklahoma on April 9, 2011: Dig the red dirt of Cody Canada & The Departed
Today’s featured event:
Hear Oklahoma-Texas band Cody Canada & The Departed at 10 p.m. Saturday at the Wormy Dog Saloon, 311 E Sheridan. Doors open at 6 p.m. Information: 601-6276 or www.wormydog.com.
For more events, go to www.wimgo.com.
-BAM
Best Bets for April 8-10, 2011: Cody Canada & The Departed, Kings of Leon and the Easter bunny
Valery Kuleshov
1. Hear Oklahoma-Texas band Cody Canada & The Departed at 10 p.m. Saturday at the Wormy Dog Saloon, 311 E Sheridan. Doors open at 6 p.m. Information: 601-6276 or www.wormydog.com.
2. Get a jump on Easter during the monthly Live on the Plaza art walk from 7 to 11 tonight in the Plaza District, NW 16 between Indiana and Blackwelder. The annual all-ages Easter egg hunt will start at 7 p.m. in front of Lyric on the Plaza, 1725 NW 16, and the Easter Bunny will be hopping through the district. Information: 367-9403 or www.plazadistrict.org.
3. Laugh at significant events that never happened as OKC Improv presents the premiere of Alternate History at 8 p.m. Saturday at Ghostlight Theatre Club, 3110 N Walker. The new long-form improv show is inspired by the work of Oklahoma writer Jeff Provine, who explores alternative history in his work. Information: 343-1570 or www.okcimprov.com.
4. Listen to the Oklahoma City Philharmonic and pianist Valery Kuleshov perform “Progressive Madness” at 8 p.m. Saturday at Civic Center Music Hall, 201 N Walker. Information: 842-5387 or www.okcphilharmonic.org.
5. TULSA — Hear rockers Kings of Leon, who have Oklahoma City ties, and Band of Horses at 7:30 tonight at the BOK Center, 200 S Denver. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Information: (866) 726-5287 or www.bokcenter.com.
-BAM
What to do in Oklahoma on Jan. 22, 2011: Hear new band Cody Canada & The Departed
Today’s featured event:
TULSA — Catch new Oklahoma-Texas band Cody Canada & The Departed, featuring the former frontman of Cross Canadian Ragweed, in concert at 8:30 p.m. today at Cain’s Ballroom, 423 N Main. Doors open at 7 p.m. Information: (918) 584-2306 or www.cainsballroom.com.
To read my recent interview with Canada about the new band, which also includes Ragweed bassist Jeremy Plato, click here.
For more events, go to www.wimgo.com.
-BAM
Best bets for Jan. 21-23, 2011
Loretta Lynn
Here is a list of activities happening around Oklahoma this weekend. For more events, go to www.wimgo.com.
1. Laugh at the acerbic wit of comedian Kathy Griffin at 8 tonight at the Civic Center, 201 N Walker. Information: 297-2264 or www.dcfconcerts.com.
2. Watch the basketball antics, including a new four-point shot, when the Harlem Globetrotters play at 2 p.m. Sunday at Oklahoma City Arena, 100 W Reno. Information: (800) 745-3000 or www.theokcarena.com.
3. MIDWEST CITY — Let Riverdance tap into your inner Irishman at 8 tonight, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday at Rose State Performing Arts Theatre, 6420 SE 15. Information: 297-2264 or www.myticketoffice.com.
4. Hear rapping cowboy Chris “Sandman” Sand, star of the deadCenter Film Festival documentary “Roll Out Cowboy,” along with local musicians Jabee and Dr. Pants, at 9 p.m. Sunday at Picasso Café, 3009 Paseo. Information: 602-2002 or www.picassosonpaseo.com.
5. TULSA — Catch new Oklahoma-Texas band Cody Canada & The Departed, featuring the former frontman of Cross Canadian Ragweed, in concert at 8:30 p.m. Saturday at Cain’s Ballroom, 423 N Main. Doors open at 7 p.m. Information: (918) 584-2306 or www.cainsballroom.com.
6. NORMAN & CATOOSA – Hear Oklahoma-born and bred Country Music Hall of Famer Vince Gill at 8 tonight. at Riverwind Casino, 1544 W State Highway 9, Norman. Information: 322-6464 or www.riverwind.com. Or hear him at 8 p.m. Saturday at The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa, 770 W Cherokee Street, Catoosa. Information: (918) 384-ROCK or www.hardrockcasinotulsa.com.
7. MIAMI – Catchy country music legend Loretta Lynn in concert at 8 tonight at Buffalo Run Casino, 1350 N U.S. 69. Information: www.buffalorun.com.
8. Celebrate the 19th anniversary of the Blue Door with Ray Wylie Hubbard at 8 p.m. today and Saturday at the Blue Door, 2805 N McKinley. Information: www.bluedoorokc.com.
9. Hear the hip-hop stylings of The Cool Kids with Na Palm and Kydd at 8 tonight at the Oklahoma City Farmers Public Market, 311 S Klein. www.okcfarmersmarket.com.
10. Catch a special Duos Night for OKC Improv with shows at 8 and 10 p.m. Saturday at Ghostlight Theatre Company, 3110 N Walker in the Paseo Arts District. The lineup includes Two’s Company, Improv-ing The World and Red Letters at 8 p.m. and Me Talk Sexy, C-4: A Red Dirt Special and Twinprov. Twinprov will close out the night with the debut of a new form called Dream Machine developed with and featuring special guest musician Zach Zeller of local band The Non.
-BAM
Video: Cody Canada & The Departed preview “Ballad of Rosalie,” to play Tulsa show this weekend
New Oklahoma-Texas band Cody Canada & The Departed recently appeared on the video series “The Texas Music Scene” to preview “The Ballad of Rosalie,” from their forthcoming album “This Is Indian Land.”
The band, which features former Cross Canadian Ragweed members Cody Canada and Jeremy Plato, will pay tribute to some of Oklahoma’s great red dirt songwriters like Kevin Welch, Bob Childers, Tom Skinner, J.J. Cale, Leon Russell, Medicine Show, Randy Crouch. In a recent interview, Canada told me to expect the new album to drop “some Tuesday in April.”
Cody Canada & The Departed will play in Tulsa at 8:30 p.m. Saturday at historic Cain’s Ballroom, 423 N Main. Doors open at 7 p.m. Information: (918) 584-2306 or www.cainsballroom.com.
-BAM
BAM column: Oklahoma music stars rocked through 2010
Elton John and Leon Russell
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
Oklahoma music stars rocked through 2010
Pardon me if my ears are still ringing from 2010.
It’s a common side effect from standing near an epicenter of musical greatness, so I’m not complaining.
Oklahoma’s vast and diverse musical scene practically quaked with success and possibilities in 2010.
Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton (Associated Press file photo)
Tishomingo country star Blake Shelton hit his “Hillbilly Bone” with Trace Adkins, and the raucous duet became the first of back-to-back chart-toppers for the Ada native. Shelton, who swapped traditional albums for a pair of Six Paks, also joined the Grand Ole Opry and proposed to his country music sweetheart and Tishomingo neighbor Miranda Lambert in 2010.
Lambert continued spinning off hits from her 2009 album “Revolution,” notching the first two No. 1s of her career with “White Liar” and “The House That Built Me.” She set a record by earning nine nominations for the Country Music Association Awards, and she and Shelton affirmed their status as the genre’s new power couple when they took home five trophies between them at the CMAs.
Checotah native Carrie Underwood, who wed pro hockey player Mike Fisher in July, expanded her repertoire into acting last year, guest-starring on the sitcom “How I Met Your Mother” and filming her movie debut in “Soul Surfer,” which will open in theaters in April. The “American Idol” also earned her first Golden Globe nomination for co-writing “There’s a Place for Us,” the end credits theme for the big-screen adaptation of “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.” We’ll find out if she won when the Globes are handed out Sunday night.
Rascal Flatts, which includes former Pitcher resident Joe Don Rooney, released its first album on new label Big Machine Records. Chockie-bred diva Reba McEntire notched her 59th Top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart and launched a superstar tour with George Strait, which is coming Saturday to Oklahoma City. Toby Keith continued to pay tribute to his late friend and fellow Oklahoman Wayman Tisdale, playing his hit ode “Cryin’ for Me (Wayman’s Song)” on April’s Academy of Country Music Awards, before reloading his career with the release of his 15th studio album, “Bullets in the Gun.”
Several Oklahoma country music standouts did our fair state proud when Nashville, Tenn., was devastated by May floods. Country Music Hall of Famer Vince Gill, who was raised in Oklahoma City, organized the first of the many star-studded telethons, while Owasso couple Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood played last month a series of nine sold-out concerts that raised a projected $3 million for the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee.
Cross Canadian Ragweed and Brooks & Dunn broke my heart with breakups, but my hopes were rekindled when Ragweed frontman Cody Canada re-emerged with new band The Departed and former Tulsan Ronnie Dunn set a 2011 solo show in Thackerville.
Oklahoma’s country music stars weren’t the only ones celebrating big achievements in the past year. Edmond teen Greyson Chance channeled Lady Gaga and achieved YouTube stardom before his 13th birthday. Former Tulsa teen trio Hanson finally pushed their 1997 global hit “MMMBop” to the back of people’s memories with their equally catchy “Thinking ‘Bout Somethin’,” which was accompanied by a clever music video tribute to “The Blues Brothers” featuring a cameo by “Weird Al” Yankovic.
While Oklahoma City-born and bred singer-songwriter Audra Mae was delivering “gypsy cowgirl soul” on her auspicious debut album, rockers Kings of Leon, which includes Oklahoma City-born members Matthew and Nathan Followill, offered a brand a rock that was more “Back Down South” for “Come Around Sundown,” the follow-up to their Grammy-winning 2008 breakout album “Only
Carrie Underwood on "How I Met Your Mother" (CBS photo)
By the Night.”
Songwriting great Jimmy Webb, who hails from Elk City, revisited some of his defining hits, including “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Galveston” and “Wichita Lineman” on “Just Across the River,” a duets album that paired him with singing stars such as Gill, Glen Campbell and Billy Joel. And songstress Judy Collins cut the defining rendition of Webb’s gorgeously complex ballad “Gauguin” as the closer to her 2010 album “Paradise.”
But few musical storylines could match the comeback of Tulsa Sound man Leon Russell, a triumphant return conceived by Elton John and produced by T Bone Burnett. For years, Russell, a shining rock star in the 1960s and ’70s, languished in relative obscurity, but John set out to restore the Lawton native to his proper place in the modern music pantheon. Their album “The Union” debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart, giving Russell extra exposure that undoubtedly helped him gain the attention of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Russell’s upcoming inauguration into the rock hall, set for March 14 in New York City, is sure to be just one highlight of 2011. I hope the new year rocks even harder. My ears can take it.
ONLINE
Golden Globes live blog
Find out whether Carrie Underwood wins the Golden Globe for best original song from a motion picture when Brandy McDonnell live blogs the 68th Annual Golden Globe Awards starting at 7 p.m. Sunday at BAM’s Blog, http://blog.newsok.com/bamsblog. The Globes will air live from Beverly Hills, Calif., at 7 p.m. Sunday on NBC, with Ricky Gervais as host.
