clubs whether they be song writing clubs or folk clubs or acoustic music or blues clubs are important in my opinion, because they have a root in a community, they are places where people make their own music, and where people turn up specifically to listen. open mics are not acoustic and there is in my opinion a tendency for it to be background music, when that happens, i feel it is disrespectful to the performer and the music. of course it does not mean that every open mic is going to be treated as background music, but ic acan mean that there will be a number of people there who are not there to listen to the music, unless the open mic is held in a seperate room.