Last Reel Hero
Pueblo, Colorado, United States | Established. Jan 01, 2017 | SELF
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Posted on October 12, 2018 by SkaBones in 2Tone, Colorado Music Scene, melodic hardcore, Melodic Punk, Northern Soul, oi, ska, skapunk - Colorado Punk Rock Army
PUEBLO-BASED REGGAE AND PUNK BAND "LAST REEL HERO" RELEASES SONG CALLED "LUDLOW MINE" ABOUT THE NATION'S MOST FAMOUS BATTLE BETWEEN LABOR AND CAPITAL IN SOUTHERN COLORADO MINING TOWN IN 1914 - Although their list of tour dates and locations this summer is impressive, members of a local six-member band called Last Reel Hero, haven't forgotten their humble Pueblo roots and the rich history of the region they call home.
The Pueblo-based band that plays what they call outlaw reggae and SKA punk music in towns throughout the United States recently released a song called Ludlow Mine as a part of their latest digital album, called Back to the Sun.
The lyrics of their new song, Ludlow Mine, are about a nationally-famed incident that took place in Southern Colorado in the early 1900s, that still remains a scar in the local history annuals. Although the Pueblo band sometimes throws the song into the mix while touring, it may resonate most with locals here in Southern Colorado.
Ludlow Mine is the site of history's most dramatic confrontations between capital and labor, the Ludlow Massacre, which took place at the Rockefeller-owned mines at Ludlow, Colorado.
The historic Ludlow Massacre attack took place on April 20, 1914, resulting in the deaths of 25 people, including 11 children. A memorial sits at the ghost town today, about 60 miles south of Pueblo off I-25.
The deadly massacre has long been featured in pictures and displays at the El Pueblo Museum in Downtown Pueblo. And now, it's featured in the song "Ludlow Mine" which the band sometimes throws in their mix of songs at concerts throughout the nation, but with words that may resonate more with locals from the Pueblo area.
Here are the lyrics to the song with a link here to listen to it free https://lastreelhero.bandcamp.com/track/ludlow-mine :
Ludlow Mine
By Last Reel Hero
Please burn my body when I die
I've been toiling here since I was ten
If I ever make it out of this Ludlow Mine
I'm never going underground again
I'm lowdown in Ludlow
I'm lowdown down in Ludlow
My family farmed a little piece of land
In what used to be old Mexico
But after the war we were dealt a bad hand
And then we had nowhere else to go
I'm lowdown in Ludlow
Lowdown down in Ludlow
There's a whole lot of tension in the coal fields lately
And I've been worrying for my friends
Some of the crew has been talking about striking
And the company has hired gunmen
I'm lowdown in Ludlow
Lowdown down in Ludlow - Southern Colorado Independent News
Discography
Last Reel Hero/Last Reel Hero full-length debut released September 2018
Last Reel Hero/Back to the Sun full-length released March 2022
Last Reel Hero/I Ain't Living Long Like This single released March 2023
Last Reel Hero/The Calling Of The Gun single released October 2023
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Sophomore album "BACK TO THE SUN" out now!
Last Reel Hero is a band whose sound, attitude, and persona was inspired by the intersection of punk and reggae in the late 1970s. As reggae and dancehall stars embraced the antihero personas that ruled spaghetti westerns and adopted performance names like Clint Eastwood and Josey Wales, that stark yet playful rebel attitude made its way into UK punk where that scene was forming and flourishing, and listening mostly to Jamaican music.
The members of Last Reel Hero all came up listening to punk and plenty of Jamaican music themselves as youths and fledgling musicians. After years of playing individually in different punk, ska, and hardcore bands, that love for the crossover of cultures and musical styles that seemed so steeped in a synthesis of cultural mythologies came together and in April 2017 the band Last Reel Hero emerged. The name came from the 1972 film The Harder They Come starring reggae legend Jimmy Cliff as Ivanhoe Martel whose friend takes him to see the 1966 spaghetti western classic Django and at a harrowing scene in the film, Ivanhoe's friend Jose exclaims, “the hero can't dead 'til the last reel.” Later Ivanhoe flashes back to this before he goes out in a hail of police bullets after his life of crime necessitated by poverty runs him afoul of the law in an unjust society.
The soundtrack to The Harder They Come is often credited with popularizing reggae in the United States and that legacy is something Last Reel Hero honors and pays forward with its own music. The film and the culture that in some ways spawned from it are a testament to the struggling, working class musicians who must overcome incredible odds to get their music heard. It's a hybrid music that seems especially relevant now when cross-pollination of cultures and subcultures is already a done deal and working class people are struggling harder than ever to make it. Last Reel Hero's music may be old school in its approach to songwriting and its cultural roots but its vision and ethos is aligned with the best impulses of the present.
The band released its debut full-length in September 2018. Recorded at Denver, Colorado’s All Aces Studios with Austin Minney, the record will appeal to fans of The Clash, and The Specials without sounding like a throwback. The songs have the dramatic aspect and sense of personal mythology that set those bands apart from many of their peers as well as an irreverent political consciousness one would expect from a band that takes the great antiheroes as a guideline for fighting back against everyday challenges.
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