Rockabilly Revival : Roadhouse Rockers, a hard-working trio that reveres ‘50s American music, will play in Camarillo and Ventura.

They have enough grease on their hair to make Brylcreem stock go sliding up the Wall Street listings.

Look at their pointy shoes, listen to their repertoire of about a zillion three-minute classics--hey, it must be the hardest-working band in the 805 area code, those reverent rockabilly revivalists, the Roadhouse Rockers.

The Santa Barbara-based trio will be playing at Gold Street in Camarillo on Thursday night, the Rock House in Ventura on Friday and Saturday nights, and the Bermuda Triangle in Ventura next Wednesday.

“We play three or four nights a week, depending,” said Tony Balbinot, the bandleader, the guitar player and the guy with the major hair. “We usually play in Santa Barbara or Ventura and sometimes at the Blue Saloon, a rockabilly bar in Hollywood. The farthest we went was last year, when we went all the way back to Illinois. We started in Phoenix, went to Amarillo--the old Route 66--and ended up in Illinois, where I’m from originally.”

Balbinot is a rarity--a South Coast musician without a day job. He has been here since 1965 and graduated from--how ‘bout those Royals?--San Marcos High School in Goleta.

He started the band eight years ago and after the usual personnel changes and creative differences, seems satisfied with the current trio. The other two members are Micky-Rae on stand-up bass and vocals and Phil-Bo, who hits those drums.

Balbinot traces the roots of Roadhouse Rockers music to his youth in the Midwest.

“When I was a kid back in Illinois, this woman who lived upstairs used to know this guy who owned a bunch of jukeboxes in town. . . . When the records would get too scratchy, he’d give them to her and my mom and I would get to hear them,” said Balbinot.

“I loved all that rockabilly stuff when I was 4 or 5, and I guess I never got over it. When I was going to high school, all the other kids were into Jimi Hendrix. I was into Duane Eddy. I started the band eight years ago and we had as many as five members. I always wanted it to be a rockabilly band, but some of the original guys were into classic ‘60s rock. As they started to leave the band, I gradually added the people who were into the stuff I was into.”

Rockabilly is an indigenous form of American music that took off in the mid-’50s, and it has never really gone away, despite the common suspicion that its practitioners’ watches stopped in 1959 when a little dab would still do ya.

“When people ask me about our music, I have to say the Stray Cats or ‘Blue Suede Shoes,’ because nine out of 10 people don’t know what rockabilly is,” Balbinot said.

“We do about 10 originals every night, plus a bunch of obscure covers. We’re used to playing 4 1/2- or five-hour gigs. We do 50 or 60 songs. Those Hollywood bands that play one 45-minute set crack me up.”

The Roadhouse Rockers have a new record that, strangely enough these days, is just that.

It’s a 45, a red one on Rock-a-Billy Records. They have sold 150 copies, many of them at their live gigs.

“We were counting the other day, and we came up with 28 clubs that we’ve played at that have come and gone,” Balbinot said. “We probably even missed a few in Ventura. We used to hold our own dances at San Marcos Lanes, but despite all the places that’ve folded, the local scene is still pretty good. There’s definitely places to play. In fact, we like the Rock House a lot.”

Also on Balbinot’s list of likes these days: Europe.

“Europe is really the place for rockabilly,” Balbinot said. “They’re really into Western culture over there. Places like Sweden and Finland have their own rockabilly bands, but they want to hear American music. It’s like us doing Beatle songs: It’s not the real thing. Tom Ball & Kenny Sultan (the Santa Barbara-based acoustic blues team) just came back from a six-week tour, and they’re helping us.”