My full name is Mauricio Rodrigues. I’m from Ancona, Italy on the Adriatic coast. It’s a big port to go to Croatia. I’m 34, and I’ve been in Málaga just three months. There was no music in my family. My father listened to Italian music and a lot of Dire Straits in the car. I started playing guitar when I was 12. I took some lessons in the school with a classic guitar, but I quit after maybe one year. My father pushed me to play. He asked me if I wanted a guitar. Actually, my father wanted me to play the guitar for fun. He also said it’s good with the girls! 

I started again with the guitar with more focus when I was 18. With my friends, I had a metal band. We played Black Sabbath and Metallica. Power chords. Not so difficult. We played two or three covers, and the rest was our own stuff. I took some lessons again to learn some scales to know the modes better. 

I did a lot of jobs, but the last one was in a food warehouse. When I was 20, I quit this job. I just understood that I was working in something that was not interesting to me and all the money go away for car, a moto, beers. The life was very flat. I began to think that music maybe could be my thing with the band, but I thought the idea to go away and change my environment was bigger. I changed my life completely. I sell all what I have and start travelling with the backpack and the acoustic guitar. I was playing quite a lot of guitar then. 

I began in Spain and then in England, but it was cold, so I came back to Spain. I was traveling very low budget. I played on the street a little. I think the first time was in London. I was so nervous, but after a bit, I started loving playing in the street. It’s a way I can put out my music without any obligations and I can see directly the response of people. And it was good to work with my shyness! At the beginning I was super shy, but this helped a lot to work there.

The second time I came to Spain I stayed here for 4 years and a half. During that time, actually, I sort of put aside the music. I was living in a kind of eco-village community called Beneficio near Orgiva for free in the mountains close to Granada in Alpujarras. It’s a beautiful valley. Someone in the 80s started this community, maybe 200 people now. I love it. With some friends we have our little community there. We built a little house with a garden with animals and goats. We make cheese. It was a very self-sufficient way of living in the nature. It was amazing. There, I didn’t play so much guitar. All travelers like me that make a big community, we start to have the same idea to buy a piece of land and have a base. I buy one. Someone buy another one, so we have places to stay everywhere in Spain and Portugal and Italy and making things together and playing music. I think this for my future.

This experience and the rave culture really affected me. I went to my first rave party when I was just 19. Then it was just partying, but it became more for me. It changed my life a lot. It is a community of open people from everywhere with everything shared and it’s all free. Now it’s more a way of life I like. I just went to one rave party near Madrid on New Years. They are all a little illegal. For this one, nobody knew where is the party exactly until one hour before the party and there is a group message and we go. Like 20,000 people. A lot of music, but there are spaces for children with bouncing areas, not just dance music boom boom. It’s like a bubble, another dimension, a utopia. The thing is the approach to living. Spontaneous and generous. There is no commercial purpose. You can make whatever you want, like food and other things just to share. It’s a wonderful way of living.

After Beneficio, I went to Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands. I spent two winters there staying on a free beach with a lot of people from everywhere. There I was living just from the guitar. I could make enough to live. I wasn’t paying rent, just living on the beach in my tent. Then I made a little shelter. There were a lot of people and a lot of music. Cool moments. In the second winter, I was totally focused on playing the guitar.

When I was in Tenerife it was the best moment playing in the street. I had no amplifier and I went just with the guitar. At the moment, I was studying classical Brazilian music like old choros. It was another mood because I didn’t need so much money and I was playing my stuff super tranquilo. The people was really enjoying. 

In these years I traveled a lot. I spent a lot of months in Champagne, France working seasonal in the vineyard. I still do that these days, so I have some money that I know is coming. I work there from say May to July and then harvesting grapes in September to the beginning of October. I’ve been doing this 8 years now.

When I left in my twenties traveling, I started to get in touch with different music until one time, thanks to my mother actually, I start to get in touch with Baden Powell, a Brazilian guitarist. Amazing. Samba Jazz. And he plays classic guitar, so I fell in love with classic guitar again. In the moment, I just understood that I need to understand harmony and it opened my mind a lot.

So after Tenerife, I went back to Italy to Ancona for four years. I rent a house until two years ago. I wanted to stay and study Brazilian music and jazz. I thought about conservatory, but it was too much, too long, so I spent one year with private lessons. I just found a perfect teacher who taught me jazz harmonies. He just finished the conservatory of jazz and he was teaching me. This was super helpful for composing, too. I spent one year closed in my room with my computer and guitar making music and composing. All day long playing! It was amazing. I’m a super nerd with the jazz stuff. I’m in love with the nylon strings. I start to play like 10 hours a day every day for years. It was very intense. Just that. Wake up and play and look at the clock and think, “Oh, I need to eat and sleep!” In Italy, I was teaching a little guitar too. When I was teaching jazz or more advanced stuff, I enjoyed a lot, but I need motivated students. I get very annoyed with just the basics.

I went to Lisbon, too, before to come here last year. I went to Lisbon for the music because Lisbon is amazing for the music. To play in the street is not the best but there are a lot of very good musicians and some bars where every day is a jam session or concert with super high-level musicians. But I struggled to play in the street.

This is when I started making bubbles in the street, but the police tell us we can’t do it, so in a moment I thought the hottest place in Europe is Málaga. We make big bubbles in the street and sell the tools and a bottle of the mix solution. The kids love it with thousands of bubbles going everywhere. They can play with it. So, I called the City Hall about doing the bubbles and the lady said yes. So, I came here and start to make bubbles in front of the Roman Theater, and it was amazing until Christmas when the police stopped us because the street was slippery, but the money was amazing. In three hours, we were making 150 Euros! So, I moved a little to the area with soil right next to the walking street, but a lady complained that if I stay there, it would never grow back the grass. So, I go to the beach to do this. It’s not as good as here in the center, but it’s OK. When is good weather, I go there to make bubbles on the weekend when there is children. This is another way to make money. I want to do that, to have different ways to get money.

I write music also, but I don’t really play it in the street, I play different stuff because I think it is more attractive to the people. It depends on the place. If I feel there is a place where people can listen good and the acoustics are good, I can play some of my stuff that requires a bit more listening. The thing is the money. I want to play my whole life, but I also want to keep working in the fields for the money. I also work in a festival in May where I make pizza and earn money from that. I’m trying to make a balance. 

In Málaga I sleep in my car. I had a caravan before with my girlfriend, but when we break up, I bought a big car. I camperized it. I took out the rear seat and made a bed. In the back I have the kitchen. It’s comfortable. I put a floor in so it’s easy to clean. I have a small stove. Now I stay in a parking area in Peñon de Cuervo after El Palo, not so far from Málaga. It’s beautiful on the beach just 20 meters from the sea. It’s free, full of caravans from all around Europe. There is a toilet and water. It’s amazing. 

My parents were a little scared for me at the beginning. They said I should take a job and have a family. But then my dad says he is proud of me and what I’m doing. My mother too. Our relation got much better after I returned from traveling. I made some lo-fi recording jazzy pop music. My mother loved it and she asked me to make a compilation for her so she could put it on in her shop.

In the summer, I want to play in north Europe, like Germany, France or Switzerland because it’s a totally different mentality. It’s more open. People appreciate it more like in Dublin. I can make bubbles and make music. That’s it. Here in Málaga for a lot of people it’s like you are begging. There is not the appreciation. Most of the people who stop and give me money and say thank you, 80% are from north Europe. Spanish people are a little more difficult for this. It’s like this in Italy too.

Now I think a little different playing on the street. I feel a bit stressful working on the street because if there is one week with rain and no money, I can be worried. A lot of thinking about money in the music - I don’t like this at all. I would like to approach playing in the street without having to think about the money. I have to do it, but I want to give some spice in the world. For most of the people, it doesn’t matter, but when there is someone who loves it and appreciates a lot and dances or stops to listen, this is amazing. Of course, some days are super difficult, and I wonder, “Maybe I should just go to take a job and just play by myself after work.” I can be very tragic when I don’t have much energy! And some days I just love and it’s amazing. Some days are very good and I feel like I want to do this my whole life. The music is a lot like that with the emotion. But my real passion is playing the guitar. It’s the most amazing thing I can do. I want to do music in the street and work in the vineyards and also do bubbles.

And I love jazz. For me it is like an idea. Improvisation and the freedom of the harmony and spontaneity. My music doesn’t have to be jazz, but the idea of jazz in any music. Jazz is my lifestyle. I told that to a lot of people. I improvise my life. That’s why I love jazz. For me jazz can go everywhere in any kind of music to have that jazzy feeling. The jazz way of life. That’s me.

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