Geoff Bartley's Monday Night Open Mic

Thank you for your interest in the open mic at the World-Famous Cantab Lounge in Central Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts. We cordially invite you to visit, at which time you'll be privileged to view Jimmy's Christmas lights (which are up and on year 'round) with your very own eyes. You must be 21.

We hope this page will answer more questions than it raises. Geoff Bartley runs an open mic w/ a feature on Monday nights and bluegrass on Tuesday nights. All the other nights are sewn up until the end of time.

Can we talk you into visiting us and playing a couple? If you're a newcomer and arrive by 7:45 any Monday night Geoff will probably be able to give you one of the fiercely-coveted slots before 10:00 as a way of saying thank you for coming. Plan two songs.

On subsequent visits, throw your name into our hat and take your chances about when you go on... we pull names out at random. Playing later in the night also has advantages. If you come late... like 11:00 or midnight or later... you'll still get a slot and sometimes we can put you right on. We usually run right up to 12:45 AM closing.

This open mic is primarily a place for people to learn stagecraft, try new songs, learn to present a song, learn how to end a song, to develop stage presence, to be inspired, to inspire others, to express themselves, to comment on some aspect of The Modern World. Geoff plays two songs at 8:00 PM to get the thing started. All kinds of music are encouraged... original songs, cover songs, acoustic blues, jazz, pop, soul, unaccompanied singers, instrumentalists... almost anything goes. (Spoken Word poets are encouraged to visit the Cantab downstairs on Wednesday nights when the Boston Poetry Slam meets. )

The only thing that hurts us is overly long set-up and tear-down times. So if you're an electric band, come very stripped down... hand percussion and small amps... or better yet we'll plug your electric instruments into our sound system. This means you don't hafta schlepp the amps! Our soundman PJ Shapiro is an excellent musician and songwriter... he will take care with your house and monitor mixes and will help you sound good. The sound system is pretty good and rarely catches on fire.

The feature set runs from 10 to 10:40. Pay for this is via $5 requested pass-the-hat only, no guarantee. The open mic resumes after the feature set.

Getting Hired as an Open Mic Feature: The process by which Geoff chooses feature acts is so complicated that even he doesn't understand it, but he listens to everyone and does hire some acts after hearing them and meeting them at the open mic.

Your open mic host, Geoff Bartley, is a respected acoustic fingerstyle folk and blues guitar player. He also writes songs, plays the harmonica, and sings.

So come on over to the Cantab Lounge (Psychic Vortex of the Great Northeast) and share your music or grab a brew and just listen . . .