The Mine

Overview

The Mine is the name of a nightclub franchise that has been particularly associated with the North American troll rock subculture. All branches of The Mine share a style artfully designed to look like distressed, abandoned industrial buildings, and often feature live music.

History

The original Mine club was opened in Vancouver, Canada in 2009. Owner Chris Tooklin, a Vancouver native, sank his inheritance into the club, and for two years it remained a small, struggling business that struggled to attract a loyal cliental. A turn-around in the club's fortunes came in the summer of 2011, when struggling Canadian musician Bill Gruph convinced Tooklin to book his band, Uruk-hai.

Uruk-hai played an extreme form of rock music that, against all odds, seemed to catch on with the patrons of The Mine. Tooklin, realising the potential, booked the band for several more dates and engineered a word-of-mouth advertising campaign which launched the genre of music known as troll rock, caused The Mine become the hottest club in town, and promoted Uruk-hai to one of the most celebrated new bands in North America.

Within a year, Tooklin, with great fanfare, opened a second branch of The Mine in New York. This club rapidly outstripped the Vancouver club in fame and prestige, being much larger and better placed to attract a prestigious clientele. It rapidly became "the" place to be seen in New York, and people went as much to rub shoulders with the rich and famous as to appreciate the finer points of troll rock. The Mine in Vancouver is now seen as a smaller, poorer cousin of the New York club, and indeed few of the New York club's patrons will even be aware of its existence. True troll aficionados, however, continue to regard the original Vancouver Mine as the spiritual home of the movement.