My full name is Massimo Javier Embriaco. It’s an Italian last name that means “drunk,” but I don’t drink much. I’m 33 and I’m from Buenos Aires, Argentina, but a city whose name is Merlo about 40 minutes from the center of Argentina. My great-grandfather came from Italy. My grandmother, the mother of my mother, played the piano very well. My older sister used to sing and the oldest writes poetry. The only musician was my grandma. My mother was a painter. In Spanish we say, “pintura a olio.” She painted landscapes. She was good, very good. My father like music and has a good ear. He likes psychedelic rock – King Crimson, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd – Dark Side of the Moon - and Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

When I was young, I only played the flute at school. I was very good. I listened to punk rock music as a teenager, like NOFX. The Ramones were too soft for me. I was rebellious. I turned up the music loud and my parents want me to turn it down. I started playing guitar at 18 years old. Why? Because it was my first time smoking weed. So, I came home, and my father was listening to Stevie Ray Vaughn on the TV. It was a live show. He was playing Voodoo Child by Jimi Hendrix, and I came home stoned and when I hear that, it was shocking. “That’s what I want to do,” I said. I know it was because I was under the effects of marijuana, but it was for me, “Wow!” It was like what I was watching was wrong, like it was not real because if what I smoked, but it was real. Then I wanted a guitar, but I didn’t have the money, so I found a wooden stick, like a board, in my house. With a black marker, I drew the strings on the board, and I had a sex pistols sheet music. The chords were totally wrong, but I practiced to put the fingers on the board without the strings! Just on the board. And I started practicing. I did that for 4 or 5 months. My dad just laughed. He still laughs when he says, “Remember when you practiced on that stick of wood!” It’s not that he didn’t want to buy me a guitar, but he couldn’t.

My father used to paint houses, and I went to work with him to make some money and I bought an electric guitar for 480 pesos, maybe $120. It was expensive. I had to pay every week some money to buy it. It was a left-handed Stratocaster. No amp. My father had an amp to listen to music, an old hand-made one. Fortunately, it had a plug-in in the back, but just clean. It didn’t sound like Stevie Ray Vaughn! I didn’t understand why. And then a friend of mine told me I need a pedal of distortion, and then I bought that, but I ruined my father’s speaker! I blew it out.

The first year I played by myself listening to punk music. I could know the notes just listening. Punk rock is easy. It was my first approach. When I think about it now, I think I had a good ear. I don’t think all the guys in their first approach to music could do that, even if it’s punk rock.

First of all, I wanted to be an English teacher because when I was a child, I used to go to a private institute after school to learn English from a native American English speaker. Thomas Schiro was his name. He was really good, and a really kind person. I wanted to teach like he did, so I studied English 9 years from 9 to 18 years old. To pay for this, my father and I used to paint the language academy.

I went to do the placement exam to test my level, and I thought that I did awful with the oral. When I got out that day I said, “Oh, I did really really bad.” The next week when I went to see the grades, it was a 9 out of 10. Wow! And the writing test, I was sure I did good, and it was 4 or 5, and so I lost the year because if you don’t pass the exam you have to wait another year. I took that year to continue smoking, playing the guitar and working a little bit with my father just to pay my needs, and the next year I started the conservatory. I didn’t take the test again.

This is why I studied 7 years in the music conservatory because if you don’t have any skill, I had to do three years of introduction to the career before 4 years of the real conservatory. I learned how to write and read music, chords, scales. I chose guitar. There were two branches – one to teach in schools and the other to be a musician. I wanted to generate money, and I saw that in the musician branch there were just people hanging out playing all day, smoking. The other one was more serious to be a teacher. But at the end, I found out if I took the other way, I could even teach.

I played in two punk rock bands. I did the solos. The first band, the name was Triology. We were three so we add an “o” to trilogy. We played covers and my own songs because the drummer didn’t write and the bassist was so bad, he just played the tonics. I called him “The Tonic Man!” We did Led Zeppelin covers, but at that level. We played in an Asado, a barbeque restaurant, and it was nice. Then the bassist player left, and the drummer left. Then with time, I made another one with another drummer. That was really good. His name was Estrobodelia. We played for about one year, and they played us for playing. I played guitar and sing. The drum player was really good, but he had a trouble with cocaine, so he was always drunk. We practiced on Sundays and when we arrived once, he vomited. First, we laughed that maybe he was with a party yesterday, but with the time it started to become a problem. He forgot the music and it ended, but it was nice. He had a house in the countryside with a large swimming pool. It was a beautiful summer with music and relax. When I think back, I don’t regret, but it was just losing time because now I see I didn’t do anything.

I played in the street just one time in Buenos Aires, but I am shy. When I was younger, I was even more shy and I went with a friend who played the guitar and sing, and I just do the solo with my head down hiding. It was a tunnel with the train passing over us. The acoustics were really good, but the police told us to leave and that was it.

When I was about to finish conservatory, about a year and a half left, start the Covid. And it was all on-line. And I said, “No, no way. Music on-line? No. I’m going to wait for this to end and then restart again.” And I started working doing ice cream, managing a store, and painting houses by myself with my own clients. My father and I disagreed a lot about how to do the job right. And I taught music privately. I started making money and when the Covid finished, I said, “I don’t have time to finish the career.”

Why did I move? That’s a good question. I don’t know. I don’t have that adventure soul. I like something secure. There was a friend, the owner of this ice cream store, who sold it and moved here to Málaga. He told me Europe was better. It is safer. No thieves. It’s awful in Buenos Aires and even worse in my town. For example, in the bus stop you can not listen to music. You have to be aware of the guys around. Maybe nothing happens, but you always have that sensation of being careful. You can not leave your phone on the table in a restaurant like you are doing now. Someone will grab it.

I had a place I constructed on the land of my father’s house where the garage was. Very small but it was mine. I sold my apartment to my sister and everything I had. I sold my motorcycle, studio, guitar, bass, even the bed and air conditioner. I pay a lawyer. I pay my airline tickets and in six months I had all my documents.

Then I moved to Italy with my savings because the father of my grandfather was Italian, so I could do the citizen. I stayed with some of this ice cream friend’s relatives in Italy. The relative of this friend of mine received me in their house in Italy in Abruzzo in the middle of Italy two hours away from Rome. I pay the rent and services. It was very nice in the house in Italy. They invite me to dinner. I was in the middle of the mountain. If they have to go down to buy something, they ask, “Do you need something? Do you want to come with me?” They were very nice. The older one had 95 years old. She was very lucid. She cooks, everything. She is like my grandma. Her daughter stayed there too. She was 70. Another with 81 years. They are my family in Italy now. I really liked it there with them.

I played from March to June in 2024 on the street in Italy. I went to Roseto to a beach town to play. I put the bag with an amplifier on my chest with the guitar on my back and took my scooter to this town. It was really good because it was for pleasure. I just went on weekends. It was spring, so there was no one on the beach. Just the sea, the sun and me, so I play from 9pm to midnight. First, I went to the beach, swim, have some sun and then I play. That was a pleasure, really. One day I remember there was nobody. I wanted to play during the afternoon maybe from 5 to 6:30 pm. I looked left and right, but there was nobody. Then when I finish this blues song, I hear applause and, “Bravo, bravo!” When I looked up, there maybe 100 meters away, a woman in the balcony. She was maybe 55 years old. She was really cheering from the heart. That day I was like, “Wow! That’s why I’m playing.” It was very beautiful.

I played until my motorcycle accident on June 21 in 2024. Well, it’s a story. I always liked religion. I’m not a religious guy but just like to know spiritual stuff and inner peace. Where I worked in a chemical processing factory, I had a friend who was a really nice guy. He was just 18 years old. And you know that young people now, I see they just go on automatic pilot like robots, but this guy was different. He was a really good partner at work. He was very patient with me explain me every day even when I forget. I worked there 2 months, and he was a Jehovah’s Witness. And I say, “Maybe this religion is good because this guy is a really good person.” He never talked to me about religion, but by myself I said, “Do you mind if one day I go with you to the Kingdom Hall?” He came with me, and it was nice. I was going there on Sunday and before there was a kind of rain, so there was still a slippery road and it was so fast I don’t remember exactly what happened, but suddenly the bike was on my foot. My foot was totally destroyed, just hanging there. It was a disaster. The ambulance was there in 20 minutes. They had to twist it into place without any anesthesia. I just screamed. There was a moment in which I couldn’t scream anymore. The pain was awful. The doctor told me, “I do this because it’s better. If not, I have to do emergency surgery and 15 days later I have to do it again.” He was really good. They did an x-ray and scan, and it was in the right place. He told me, “You owe me an asado Argentino!” It was Sunday and he was with his family, and he had to come to the hospital just for me. It was an awful experience. So, I had the surgery, I have metal rods in my ankle and foot but it’s still not great.

After this, I couldn’t work anymore, so my friend told me to come to Málaga. He told me, “I give you 500 Euros per month for doing nothing to pay rent and play guitar.” But after one month, he stopped. So, I found a place to live in Benalmádena near Málaga. It’s very nice. It’s really quiet. It has a wonderful park with a lake. There is a public library, and I don’t have to pay anything to take a book. There is a beautiful coast.

I’m very shy. That’s why I play with sunglasses. I pretend people can’t see me. Now I’m kind of struggling with money, so this feeling is difficult. I won’t say that I feel empty playing guitar because I like playing the guitar, but I’m always thinking about the money they put in the case, so I can’t say concentrated on the music. It’s not so good for me. I want to try to change the focus from the money to the reaction of the people. There are good experiences here, but I’m always thinking about the money, but I think my playing is getting better. The thing about not having money is sleeping in the street. For me this is terrifying, something that I don’t want to experience.

If I get a part-time job, something stable, I will enjoy my music more and not have to think about the money all the time. When I had a job in Italy and Argentina, I didn’t play so much music. I would like to find a group to play with. In fact, I have an appointment later today with a guy who plays drums. Maybe we will make a blues band. Let’s see. But I don’t see him very focused. He sent me some videos playing the drums and he was very good, but I don’t know. In this musician world, it’s not easy. I would like to have a band, but I want to make it with joy. Thinking a little more, maybe it would be good living just from the music, even from busking. If I could pay rent and food and have my own time, so this would be good. If I work in a shop, and I have to wait for vacation, maybe that stability is not better. And maybe that job isn’t stable either. I’m doing my best. Well, I’ve only been here in Málaga 6 weeks, so let’s see what happens.

I was playing a couple weeks ago, and usually people pass and keep walking, and when I lift my head, I saw a girl watching me with a look like, “I like what he’s doing.” I started feeling a little nervous and missing a couple notes. I put my head down and keep playing for maybe two minutes and when I look again, she was not there. Two hours later, she came again while I was taking a break. We talk a little. The next day she came back. I was nervous. You see I get angry when a drunk man approaches to talk to me but when a girl talks to me it’s OK! I’m missing money, but it’s OK! She was very interested in the music and bought a CD. We chat some more, and I understood she was just into the music. It was really really nice because she was nice and she was French, and I never met a French person. For me it was a very good experience. She doesn’t speak very good English, even worse than me, so it was a little complicated to communicate. I never met her again, but it was a really beautiful experience. She acknowledged my playing. The plus was that I was not born here, so I never imagined this. I said, “Oh, it was worth it to come here just for this.” I lost everything, my apartment, my job to come here just because of this little thing.

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