Houston

You are locked into The Zoo, the station that still believes a record ought to kick the door in before it asks permission, and what just came off the turntable is “Houston,” track two of Alabama Chrome by The Saddle Tramps. Two minutes and forty seconds of corn-fed rock and roll out of Sparks, Nevada, cut for Von Roller Records and dropped on June 22, 2010. If you came in expecting polite Nashville, you took the wrong exit. This is the sound of a rockabilly band that learned its manners in a sports bar and then threw the manners out with the empties.

Alabama Chrome is seven songs and a hair over twenty minutes, and the title is not a paint job. Around the Reno shops they still call duct tape Alabama chrome, the silver stuff you slap on a busted fender when the real chrome is long gone and the car still has to make the gig. That is the whole philosophy of this record. It was cut on vintage gear, including tube microphones of the kind that once stood in front of Elvis Presley, and the Reno News and Review heard a lost Sun Records session from 1955 hiding under the dirt, if Sun had ever allowed a parental-advisory sticker and a lyric about shaking like Michael J. Fox in an 8.6 earthquake. That line, from “Houston,” was called one of the more family-friendly moments on the album. Sit with that for a second. The song the paper tagged a drug-rehab epic is the polite one.

“Houston” sits right behind the opener, “Hippie Killer,” and just ahead of “Dear Season.” The writers on the copyright are Scott Roller and John Von Nolde, the same two men who built the band, and the label is their own Von Roller imprint. The rest of the short stack is “Dress Like Elvis,” a wink at the rockabilly crowd that made up a big piece of their audience, “Married Alive,” “Side Pipe,” and “411.” The record-release party landed at John Ascuaga’s Nugget a few days before the street date, a career-spanning set with the whole album played through, guest musicians, and a spoons player. They handed out vinyl and a digital download. Scotty Roller told the paper you were not going to find a record with a song about a hard-on at Walmart. He was not wrong, and he was not apologizing.

The Saddle Tramps started the way a lot of the best trouble starts, as a joke that refused to stay a joke. Big John Von Nolde on bass and vocals and Scotty Roller on guitar and vocals got together in the early spring of 1998, writing songs with titles no booking agent of that era wanted on a marquee. By June they had a weekly gig at Bully’s, a sports bar in Sparks, and they were also working comedy nights at the Improv, chopping the tunes down and stuffing the gaps with standup. Roller has said the first pile included “A Sixer,” “Waitin’ On a Waitress,” and a number whose title we will let you discover on your own if your speakers can take it. They did not think anybody would book them. Getting paid to say those things in public felt like a trophy.

A duo could only carry so much weight, so they added a drummer. The original kit man, El Viagro, stayed through about 2001. By 2000 the gun-slinging go-go dancer Suzy Switchblade was in the picture, backup vocals and pure hype, the Flavor Flav of the group by her own account, on the grounds that the guys were not much to look at. The drum stool eventually locked in with Mike “Powder” Young, a hard hitter who made the cowpunk actually punk. Lead guitar passed through Reno legend Johnny Fingers, late of the Boston Wranglers, the Swiveltones, and Gunshot Licker, and later through Jon Perry, the pyrotechnic player who rode with them into the reunion years. That is the lineup the photographs remember: Roller, Von Nolde, Young, Perry, and Switchblade.

They called the music corn-fed rock and roll, sometimes cowpunk, sometimes bolt music. Twangy guitars, honky-tonk energy, breakneck tempos, and a sense of humor the local press decided was past irreverent and squarely into filthy. From the jump they played relentless dates around Reno and then west of Houston, which makes the name of this song feel less like a postcard and more like a mile marker on the tour map. The rooms on that map are worth naming. The Derby in Hollywood. The Continental Club in Austin. The Tractor Tavern in Seattle. The Bahia in San Diego. The Tropicana in Las Vegas. They set attendance marks at the old Golden Phoenix and the Reno Hilton. They turned up at Entertainment Tonight’s 20th anniversary party, at Dennis Hof’s birthday at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, introduced by Ron Jeremy and backed by members of Digital Underground, at the National Tattoo Convention, at the Blessing of the Cars, and at the APP piercing convention. Bills along the way included Royal Crown Revue, Social Distortion, and Brian Setzer. Word of mouth did the selling. This was before the phone in your pocket became the promoter.

The work rate got them a deal with Los Angeles label Split Seven, helped along by friends and former labelmates Speedbuggy and Hellbound Hayride. Nashville Swinger arrived in 2004, studio tracks plus live cuts from the Great Basin Brewing Company in Sparks, and it became the record people still call their biggest. Split Seven also put out a full-length live disc and a compilation. Don’t Laugh It’s Prayed For: Songs of Sacrilege and Salvation followed in 2007. By the time Alabama Chrome showed up in 2010 they were back on Von Roller, their own shingle, seven songs, no filler, vintage microphones, and a sticker that meant it. They kept the road going for about fifteen years, then called it quits in 2015. Reunion shows have flickered up since, including a Cargo Concert Hall date in Reno, because a fourth-grade fart joke that runs for a quarter century does not actually retire. It just waits for the amps to warm up. Roller has said neither he nor Big John thought it would become what it became. They were amusing themselves. The rooms kept getting bigger.

Which brings us back to “Houston,” the rehab epic that still fits on a side of duct tape. In a catalog stuffed with songs about the bulge in Satan’s pants and other subjects a classic-rock station has to clear its throat before announcing, this one is the character study. The narrator is coming apart in a city that has seen plenty of people come apart. The Michael J. Fox line is the tell. It is a joke, and it is not a joke. The band’s whole trick was to play the joke at Sun Records speed until the joke had a backbeat and a little mercy in it. Alabama Chrome is short on purpose. You can hear the whole thing before the coffee gets cold, and “Houston” is the track that proves the funny band could write a wreck with a pulse.

If you want the rest of the stack, the vinyl of Alabama Chrome has turned up again on their own shelf, and the 20th anniversary pressing of Nashville Swinger, numbered, colored, with a Zurich bootleg on the bonus side, is the kind of object a Zoo listener actually keeps. The official camp is at thesaddletramps.com, the old X account that still says corn-fed rock and roll from Sparks is at @Saddle_Tramps, the Facebook page they posted from lives at facebook.com/145205035500716, and the listener history is parked at Last.fm. No polished Instagram storefront turned up that belongs to this band, which feels about right for a group that built itself on word of mouth and a go-go dancer with a gun belt.

You are on The Zoo, listener-supported, commercial-free, the station that still plays the deep cut and tells you who swung the hammer. Park it at thezoorocks.com and keep the dial where the Alabama chrome holds. Next up, we stay in the dirt and turn it up.