What I'm trying to find is an searchable database.   The internet itself is a huge 'haystack' - way more than tens of thousands of items, but you can find some things pretty easily. If ASCAP has such a database for its songs/songwriters/artists, it should not be that hard to find out if certain songs or artists or songwriters are listed there.

I don't need the discussion of the venue issue. I'm just trying to find out if certain songs are off-limits for a jam session or open mic for a small bar that can't afford to pay ASCAP's blanket fee just yet.

Google/Bing, etc., was not much help. Way too many sites listed, most of which were only tangentially related to my question.   I was not seeking a general discussion of ASCAP, just a database.   

My question is, "Is there such a searchable database for ASCAP?"

And it is specifically ASCAP that is the thorn in the flesh of this new local bar that's trying to have live music every night (including band performers, jams, open mics).

Knowing that a song is "trad." or was composed before 1920 doesn't help a lot either, because copyrights have been taken out on a lot of those songs (or arrangements of them) too.