[Canceled] Soda Gardocki is the 12-string, banjo-playing embodiment of an engrossing underground film.

It isn’t a surprise Quentin Tarantino became an instant fan after seeing Soda Gardocki play at SXSW in 2012 with subversive vaudevillian Izzy Cox also on the bill.

“These guys rocked the house and good times were had by all,” Tarantino said after the performance.

If Gardocki were a movie, he’d have an enormous underground following. He even looks like a personification of the grindhouse genre flicks of the ‘70s that the Pulp Fiction auteur sites as his film education: Gardocki wears jet-black hair slicked back with a plastic sheen and 4-inch long mutton chops that look like silver slabs of bushy confusion squeezing his face like a vice. As for attire, the singer-songwriter – currently unreachable in Chicago – favors long-sleeve flannel shirts, dark blue jeans, slightly cuffed just above his ankle psychobilly-style, and a pair of black, triple sole brothel creepers.

Gardocki’s music is nothing like his look: hillbilly hootenanny (he plays the rarely seen 12-string banjo) with a trace of punk rock roots coated in early-80s Los Angeles honky tonk. Vocally, the former resident of Knights Ferry, Calif., population 99, rocks a voice like Tom Waits after a handful of Black Beauties.

Whether Gardocki – performing Saturday at Pierce Ranch with opener Jordan Smart – unravels his teary-eyed, white trash ballad “Gutter Queen” or primitive Americana-meets-Appalachian mountains, “Frio Navida,” he holds the attention of every ear in the room.

But then again Gardocki’s had a lot of practice in a mainstream situation: In the early ’90s, he co-founded L.A. punk outfit Wax (pals of Weezer and Spike Jonze and one of MTV’s original “Buzzcut” bands). After Wax disbanded in 1995 – they’ve reunited a few times since – Gardocki was able to let his freak flag fly high, enough for some of the world’s most talented freaks, like Tarantino, to see it clearly.

SODA GARDOCKI and JORDAN SMART play 9pm Saturday, Feb. 15 at Pierce Ranch Vineyards, 499 Wave St., Monterey. $8. 372-8900.

: : HEAR MORE HERE : :

reverbnation.com/sodagardocki

jordansmartmusic.bandcamp.com