Photo Courtesy of Andrew DeMercurio.
Andrew DeMercurio has been a sound engineer for nearly 12 years, and even though he can’t work at any venues at the moment, he decided to make his own venue.
DeMercurio has worked at many of Detroit’s top venues including The Crofoot, Loving Touch, El Club, The Fillmore and The Majestic. The experience of being a house sound engineer led him to create his own concert venue in his basement. He has hosted bands in the past who want to practice before the show or hold a little house concert.
When the music industry, much like other industries, was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, DeMercurio was approached by local alternative rock band The Messenger Birds to see if they could do a livestream concert. DeMercurio added more cameras to the venue and soon enough he started hosting concerts in his basement. DeMercurio streams all of the performances on the Facebook page Andrew’s Basement, which currently has over 900 likes. Past performers include The Doozers, Ardmore, Shallow Truths, Our Vices and many more. It’s great for fans of these artists to see a live performance, but DeMercurio said that many of the bands have missed performing at venues and this gives them a taste of normalcy. “Every band has had the same reaction, ‘this felt so great’ or ‘I’ve missed playing shows so much.’ It is a good feeling hearing that stuff,” DeMercurio said. Concerts are most likely gone for the rest of the year and probably for most of 2021 as well, but DeMercurio said this is just a small way of giving back to a community that has given him so much. “I think it is incredibly important to show people that music and art are still alive,” DeMercurio said. “As much as I did this for myself I did this for everyone else too. If we lost music, we would have lost our identities; what would we come back to?” Upcoming performances include Ohly on August 8, So Called Ghost on August 15 and Sincerely on August 22. DeMercurio said he’s going to try to keep a consistent lineup of shows for the coming months. He hopes to continue to grow the audience and give great, local bands an outlet to promote their music while music venues are shut down. You can see past performances on the Andrew’s Basement Facebook page, along with a calendar of upcoming shows.