After 10 years and 10 months, over 550 weekly parties plus a host of special one-off events, gigs and festive capers, the infamous SKIBUNNY CLUB will open its doors for the last time on SATURDAY 1st NOVEMBER 2008.

Truly the first alternative-electro crossover club of its kind in Belfast, Skibunny was born out of necessity, when two musicians, Mark Gordon and Tanya Mellotte with four Peel Sessions and a Melody Maker single of the week under their belts, came together as a DJ duo to create the weekly Saturday club. 'There was absolutely nowhere in the city that played the variety of music that we liked, so we had no choice but to do it ourselves' says Tanya of their January 1998 debut club night in Vicos. As the club grew in stature, SKIBUNNY then moved to their spiritual home in Auntie Annies in November 1999.

It wasn't long before people started to take notice. Radio 1 called it 'groundbreaking', and over the years the accolades kept coming with an NME Club of the Week feature and an Oh Yeah award for best alternative club (beating the mighty Shine to the post!) Radio 1 DJs even got in on the act with Rob Da Bank calling it 'absolutely wicked' and 6Music's Steve Lamacq praising it as 'genius'.

The duo then started to bring bands from all over the world to perform in Belfast, promoting the debut Belfast shows by Sparklehorse, Les Savy Fav, The Go! Team, Fridge, Clinic, Bonde Do Role, Man or Astroman and others.

Over the years, SKIBUNNY DJs began to spread their wings outside of Northern Ireland and soon found themselves DJing everywhere from New York to Russia and from Texas to Tokyo. They began to create remixes for artists like Oppenheimer (as used by Nike), Forward Russia, Handsomeboy Technique, The Freelance Hellraiser and Robots In Disguise and this led them to start creating their own music�and SKIBUNNY the band was formed.

Their debut single �Aah Ooh' was released in January 2008 on 7� vinyl and download, with second single �Remote Control' unleashed in May. Somehow, Tanya also fitted in chanteuse duties, recording vocals on two tracks of David Holmes' critically acclaimed new album �The Holy Pictures'.

So why is the club coming to an end? Mark and Tanya explain 'The main reason is time - we have been DJing outside of Northern Ireland a lot in the last year, and we are a lot busier now with remix work too, plus we're currently finishing off our debut LP. Ultimately the whole emphasis of what SKIBUNNY is about has totally shifted. As such it's no longer possible to be playing all the time in Belfast and we'd rather concentrate on doing one-off exclusive SKIBUNNY parties in Belfast that reflect the music, bands and DJs that we love and are inspired by.

'In the last 12 months SKIBUNNY have DJ'd and played everywhere from Siberia to Glastonbury, from New York to Osaka - so we just don't have the time to be able to run the club ourselves alongside everything else. Now that we have a UK booking agent as well we just feel that we cant give 100% of our time to the club, and if we haven't the time to DJ at the nights then there's no point in calling those events 'Skibunny' nights.'

So what happens next? In 2009 Skibunny DJs will be announcing a programme of one-off unique SKIBUNNY parties in Belfast featuring the hottest live acts and DJs from Britain, Europe and beyond. This will include artists they could never bring into Auntie Annies to play live, and the DJs and artists whose records they play out. The band release their third single "Up Down" on 24th November.