Acceptable in the 80s

KUNT AND THE GANG


A FACTUALLY ACCURATE TIMELINE

2000
Kunt is working as an odd job man for Essex Council in Epping. While tiling around a sink at a Youth Centre in Loughton he gets the idea for a song about his time trying to become part of the music industry. It is called Use My Arsehole As A Cunt. Given that he disbanded his last act, the keyboard duo Pubic Cube, in 1996 he doesn't know what to do with it.


2003
Following a night down the pub with his old mates reliving past glories, Kunt resolves to do a gig. Kunt and the Gang play their first gig at the Castlemayne pub in Basildon supporting Retail Outlet. The original line-up of Kunt and his puppet sidekick Little Kunt, a lifesize effigy of Kunt’s deceased parasitic twin, remains to this day.

2004
Kunt and the Gang release their debut album I Have A Little Wank And I Have A Little Cry, for which they win NME Album Title of the Year, and are somewhat surprisingly hailed by the NME as ‘The New Macc Lads’. Unsurprisingly, considering the NME didn’t like the old Macc Lads, they never follow this up with any further coverage.

2005
After setting up a profile on social networking site MySpace, Kunt and the Gang are offered their first gigs outside of Essex, and a small following begins to form. Kunt meets Mike, an Essex-based aspiring film-maker, who will go on to appear in many of the videos and to this day confuse people as to whether he is actually Kunt's manager.

2006
Mike and Kunt co-direct Kunt and the Gang's first YouTube video for their music industry opus Use My Arsehole As A Cunt, which climaxes with a hastily arranged dance routine in Basildon Town Square, described by an onlooker as ‘…the biggest load of shit I have seen in my entire life’. A second album I Have Another Wank And I Have Another Cry spawns Fucksticks, which soon becomes a firm live favourite and their second video. The finale scene causes two local women to nearly have a heart attack, believing they have just witnessed someone falling to their death from a multi-storey car park.

2007
Kunt and the Gang’s social media channels channel grow in popularity. Arranged Bride becomes the first of many videos to be banned by YouTube. A Basildon live show recording from 2006 is finally finished and released on DVD as Viva Bas Vegas. Kunt and the Gang go out on the 12-date Wanking In The Woods tour, the band’s first proper foray around the UK which sees them playing in grotty pubs as far afield as Doncaster, Birmingham and Southend.

2008
Kunt and the Gang release the final instalment in their wanking and crying trilogy of albums, One Last Wank And One Last Cry. The release is accompanied later in the year by the Men With Beards (What Are They Hiding?) E.P. The Men With Beards tour sees many followers grow facial hair especially, or wear false beards in celebration. Several usually-bearded attendees also shave their chins in an effort to draw attention away from whatever it was they are obviously up to. Aside from this, the band also perform as support to drug-addled pop ponce Pete Doherty and film a video for Shaven Haven, starring The Inbetweeners' James 'Jay' Buckley. The video for Fucksticks is plucked from the internet, edited to within an inch of its life (leaving in all the “Fuckstickses” / taking out all the “Mother’s cunts”) and broadcast on Channel 4’s shoddy low-rent web clip show RudeTube.

2009
Kunt and the Gang release an album of rarities/out-takes entitled Here’s One I Knocked Out Earlier, and launch it alongside a documentary featuring Kunt and his hapless manager Mike Gibbons, entitled That’s Inter-tainment.
Kunt and the Gang make their first appearances at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, teaming up with Laughing Horse comedy for 10 sold out shows, and play to a packed crowd at Rebellion punk festival in Blackpool.
Kunt and the Gang rework Katy Perry’s I Kissed A Girl into I Sucked Off A Bloke, which is complimented by a gritty video which brings bukkake to an Essex building site. Kunt records a tribute song in memory of Michael Jackson, which is uploaded to Youtube the day after the singer’s untimely death and leads to Kunt receiving death threats from mental American Jacko fans who are unhappy with the content, despite it being on the whole factually accurate.
Kunt and the Gang finish off the year with a flourish, getting booked to play 3 consecutive weekends on the main stage at The Big Reunion Festival at Butlins in Skegness before being hauled off halfway through their first set and banned from returning on the say so of Butlins’ management.

2010
A ‘Greatest Minor Internet Hits’ package Complete Kunt is released, featuring the best loved songs from Kunt and the Gang’s previous four albums and a couple of new tracks. The artwork consists of hundreds of photos sent in by supporters, taken with Kunt. Complete Kunt is also released on DVD bringing together all the band’s videos, some of which had fallen foul of YouTube censorship. Kunt and the Gang perform all their ‘Greatest Minor Internet Hits’ in 25 consecutive free late night shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to packed audiences.
Kunt releases Shannon Matthews: The Musical, a full-length audio musical based on the disappearance of the Yorkshire schoolgirl, performed by a small company of amateur performers based in Huddersfield, assembled by Jon Turner who plays Craig Meehan and who will later become one half of Northern techno powerhouse Petrol Bastard.
A Christmas Facebook campaign to get Kunt and the Gang’s Use My Arsehole As A Cunt into the top 40 sees a foray into political satire, as a new version Use My Arsehole As A Cunt (The Nick Clegg Story) is recorded, poking fun at the compromises made by the Liberal Democrats to become part of the coalition government with the Conservatives. It is mysteriously removed from iTunes on the week of release but still, despite no mainstream press or radio, reaches number 66 in the Official UK Chart.

2011
Kunt and the Gang start an occasional online series entitled Perverts On The Internet. Each episode incorporates a new song embedded in a far-fetched story of the exploits of Kunt, his hapless manager Mike Gibbons and the staff and regulars of their local Basildon pub, the Stem And Helmet. The series produces 3 and a half episodes before Kunt realises that no one going on YouTube has an attention span that lasts more than 3 minutes.
To commemorate the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, Kunt and the Gang record a new version of their greatest minor internet hit Fucksticks, cheekily referencing various Royal misdemeanours and scandals. This starts another Facebook campaign to get the song in the top 40. Despite massive underground support, sales irregularities mean the song peaks at number 63.
On April 28th 2011, the day before the Royal Wedding, despite having over a million views and several thousand subscribers, Kunt and the Gang’s YouTube account is deleted. This may not be unrelated to the Fucksticks (Royal Wedding Souvenir Version) video, which features various members of the Royal Family with their private parts pixelated, sexually satisfying themselves in time with the music.
Kunt and the Gang play to packed crowds at Rebellion and Download festivals and again return to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where they play 23 free shows. Rather than print and distribute 5000 promotional flyers as in previous years, Kunt hands out 5000 stickers of a crudely drawn penis and testicles which the audiences grab in spades and at Kunt's encouragement stick all over the posters of other comedians. ‘Cockgate’, as it is known, becomes a big talking point of the festival and Kunt is threatened and berated by several comedians irate about seeing their face with a winky stuck on it. It wins Kunt and the Gang the Malcolm Hardee Award (not the one for being funny or any good, the other one).
In October they release the album Hurry Up And Suck Me Off Before I Get Famous, which is hailed by one online reviewer as the band’s “least shit album to date”. This is followed by the long overdue festive album, Kunt and the Gang Kiss You Under The Camel Toe.

2012
The year starts on a low when at a gig in North London, Kunt is assassinated with piss by an irate Amy Winehouse fan, brandishing a water pistol full of urine and upset by Kunt’s tribute song Amy (It's a Terrible Shamey).
Later in the year Kunt and the Gang’s Bangers and Mash tour coincides with the release of a second compilation of unreleased and rare material, Sloppy Seconds: More Titbits From The Kunt Archives.
Download festival sees a full-to-capacity Comedy tent with over 1000 metallers joining in shouting ‘Fucksticks’ and ‘Mother’s Cunt’. At Rebellion festival there are similar scenes as Kunt again fills the Arena. A sold out run at Edinburgh Fringe Festival is only slightly marred by Kunt getting embroiled in an on-stage punch up with a drunken assailant. A second, badly under-rehearsed new show, Kunt’s On Daytime TV, is on the whole quite generously received by audiences, but described by one reviewer as "uncomfortable and depressing".
A definitive live DVD Proper Kunt is released in October with a 35-date UK tour to coincide. Kunt and the Gang usher in their Post-Yewtree period by debuting a new song. Unbeknownst to Kunt, Jimmy Savile and the Sexy Kids, written, recorded and filmed in under 24 hours will soon become Kunt and the Gang's most popular song.

2013
Kunt and the Gang make their Australian debut with shows at Adelaide Fringe Festival and Melbourne International Comedy Festival, starting off playing to half a dozen keen locals and through word of mouth finishing both runs with sell-out shows. At Edinburgh Fringe another sell-out run sees crowds pack in to a new, bigger venue at the Free Sisters. Little Kunt releases Kuntrarian, his debut solo album of cover versions with the words changed. It is met with a general air of confusion and disappointment.
The year finishes with Kunt releasing a video encouraging people to stand up against Simon Cowell’s monopolizing of the Christmas charts by participating in the world’s first ever virtual dirty protest. On December 15th, literally tens of people take photos of their morning bowel movement and tweet it to the high-trousered pop impresario with the hashtag #dirtyprotest.

2014
As part of a plan to tour once a year, Kunt takes 6 months off gigging and grows a patchy, rapey looking beard which he sports in a high concept 3 minute video re-make of Planet Of The Apes to commemorate the 10th anniversary of live favourite Wanking Over A Pornographic Polaroid Of An Ex-Girlfriend Who Died.
A new album Jap’s iTunes is met with excitement and praise, presumably after people had their expectations lowered by last year’s Little Kunt album. Jap’s iTunes is promoted with a 50 date UK tour, selling out several dates. Kunt condenses his Edinburgh Fringe run to two nights in a bingo hall, where the crowd participate in the world’s first ever ‘Celebrity Nonce Seance’, summoning up the ghost of a much maligned deceased former disc jockey and philanthropist.
Kunt and the Gang finish the year with a second video, Jesus (Baby With A Beard), again in heavily edited form, being featured on Channel 4’s RudeTube.

2015
A second greatest (minor internet) hits album, Kunt’ll Fix It, is released, which also includes a few new tracks to try and flog it to the people who’ve already got everything else. One of the new songs Paperboy produces the most extreme crowd reactions in Kunt and the Gang's 12 years of gigging. On the Kunt’ll Fix It tour, supported by his former manager and minor internet hit wannabe Mike Gibbons, Kunt maintains he has invested in and is trying to win back public confidence for the ’ll Fix It brand. In order to do this, at every gig he fixes it for a member of the audience to join him in a rendition of his third greatest minor internet hit Use My Arsehole As A Cunt. The Kunt’ll Fix It tour draws the biggest crowds to date.
Following 2 sell out shows at Edinburgh Fringe, Kunt and the Gang is invited for a rare TV appearance on Before The Morning After, a subscription only show on Seeso/NBC Digital. Kunt performs Paperboy in front of an enthusiastic Brendon Burns and a less enthusiastic Marc Watson.

2016
Feeling he has reached the end of the road, Kunt announces plans to call it a day and records a final album, Blue ROFL. Kunt and the Gang set out on one last tour, again supported by Mike Gibbons. Most dates sell out, and in amongst hugging it out with 17-stone men in the various stages of grief, Kunt receives all manner of strange, mental and often worrying gifts, including a plethora of wankmags, a signed picture of Rolf Harris and a 14 inch gingerbread phallus.

2018
The artist formerly known as Kunt releases an autobiography, i, Kunt (How I became and remained a minor internet hit singer). Skint and back painting and decorating, Kunt crowdfunds the book's print run. The campaign reaches its target in 24 hours. As a stretch goal Kunt plans to record an album of punk versions of his existing songs.

2019
Kunt puts together a band to record the punk album and drafts in some old mates and collaborators - Carsehole, AKA Mr. Jels, a veteran of the videos comes in on guitar, Skidmark joins on bass and Fucksticks on Drums. They decide to call themselves The Kunts. The Kunts meet most weeks and run through a set of existing Kunt and the Gang songs that mostly loosely thematically fit the punk remit. Hearing that Fucksticks in his IT day job had fixed the Queen's Gynaecologist Alan Farthing's computer, Kunt re-purposes an old song The Queen's Cunt as God Save The Queen's Cunt.

2020
The band go into a little recording studio on an industrial estate just off the A127 at Benfleet and spend two days recording the songs they have been rehearsing. As the album is being mixed, the Coronavirus pandemic hits the UK and the country is put into lockdown. Kunt hands the tracks over to Mike, who mixes the album at home.
During the pandemic Kunt starts broadcasting live from his shed on YouTube each evening, and calls it Kunt's Korona Klub. Each evening Kunt reads a chapter from i, Kunt (How I became and remained a minor internet hit singer), interspersing the text with songs from the Kunt and the Gang back catalogue, all the while being in equal measures celebrated and berated by the viewers (or 'wronguns') in the chat panel.
Just before the punk album is finished, The Kunts record one more song remotely. A B-side from the Men With Beards EP If You Don't Like This Song, You're A Fucking Cunt is repurposed as Donald Trump Is A Fucking Cunt. At the last minute, realising that something is going on closer to home Kunt changes the subject of the song and re-records his vocal. The album Kunts Punk In Your Face is given away to backers of the book Kickstarter and released onto Spotify, with Boris Johnson Is A Fucking Cunt a last minute addition to the tracklist.
Completely out of the blue on September 29th Ginger Wildheart tweets a link to Boris Johnson Is A Fucking Cunt with the message "Xmas number 1. Who’s in?" A month later, Charlie Brooker echoes the sentiment. Suddenly there is a buzz on social media about the idea that gathers pace, and with no TV exposure, radio play or print press, Boris Johnson Is A Fucking Cunt lands at Number 5 on the Christmas Chart.

2021
With the UK still in the balance of lockdowns, and very late in the day, The Kunts record a follow up to Boris Johnson Is A Fucking Cunt, Boris Johnson is STILL a Fucking Cunt, with bass duties changing hands from Skidmark to Fucksticks' twin brother Rubber Jonny. In an interview with the Official Charts website, The Kunts' chart rival, the charity sausage roll influencer LadBaby disparagingly refers to "a certain sort of person" that would support The Kunts' song. Kunts supporters joyfully reclaim the phrase, and much to LadBaby's chagrin cast scrutiny on his motives (and accounts). With the spectre of Covid again looming, The Kunts manage to complete a small tour of half a dozen gigs to support the release. With remixes including Cassetteboy, B3ta's Rob Manuel, DJ Destruction and Petrol Bastard, Boris Johnson is STILL a Fucking Cunt matches its predecessor, landing at Number 5 on the Christmas Chart, again with no TV exposure, radio play or print press.

2022
To coincide with The Queen's Platinum Jubilee (or Platty Joobs, as fucking idiots begin calling it), The Kunts release a new song Prince Andrew is a Sweaty Nonce. Before the video is released, Kunt and the Gang's YouTube channel is again removed. Undeterred, The Kunts promote the song by organising a flash mob of their followers in Prince Andrew masks having a singalong outside Pizza Express in Woking. A small faction then get the train into London and repeat the singalong outside Buckingham Palace. A clip of this quickly gains over a million views on TikTok and despite strange shenanigans from iTunes and Amazon that cause people to speculate they might attempting to hamper the release, Prince Andrew is a Sweaty Nonce hits the Official UK chart at number 20. It is the Jubilee's best-selling single and the UK Indie Chart number 1.
Kunt ticks an item off his bucket list by appearing on Richard Herring's podcast RHLSTP. The Kunts pre-empt Boris Johnson resigning as Prime Minister with a new acoustic song, Fuck off Boris You Cunt. Rock Fix magazine commemorate The Boris Johnson Trilogy with a limited 7" red, white and blue splattered vinyl 7" single which quickly sells out its limited run of 300 on pre-orders. The band play a post-headline acoustic show at Bloodstock Festival with Kunt taking to the stage and thanking Merciful Fate for supporting, before introducing the band as "Kuntford and Sons", causing the crowd to break out in a spontaneous chant. The name sticks and the Kunts later use it for their unplugged material.
12 years after its release, Kunt and the Gang's Shannon Matthews: The Musical is unexpectedly revived by Yorkshire's Tuppence Ha'Penny Theatre Company and enjoys a successful sell-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe festival. Reaction is so positive that a film version is crowd funded, reaching its £10,000 target in less than 24 hours and eventually raising £26,400.
Following Liz Truss's 45 day spell as Prime Minister in which she crashes the UK economy, The Kunts finish off the year by releasing another new song, Fuck The Tories, with one of Kunt's musical heroes Terry Edwards guesting on saxaphone. Kunt makes 20 versions of the song available, including remixes from Cassetteboy, Ricardo Autobahn, Rob Manuel, Petrol Bastard, Mr. B The Gentleman Rhymer and a guest appearance from the ghost of Captain Tom. Stoking up a beef with a previous Christmas chart rival, podcasters Dead Men Talking join Kunt on a Sausage Roll Cunt Version of the song. The Kunts support the release with another small tour of half a dozen shows. Fuck The Tories lands at Number 5 on the Christmas Chart, once again with no TV exposure, radio play or print press. It becomes The Kunts' 4th top 20 single in a row to not be mentioned by title or band name on the Radio 1 Chart Countdown.

2023
The Kunts commemorate the Coronation of King Charles in May by releasing their anti-Royal anthem Scrap The Monarchy. Due to family circumstances Kunt is unable to organise a campaign as he has done with the other chart singles, so he asks followers to write and record their own verses. The dozens of submissions received are worked into alternative versions of the song. The Kunts promote the single by going up to the London Coronation celebrations and joining the anti-monarchy march, with Kunt wearing a giant Jimmy Savile head (Jimmy being the UK's most prolific paedophile and having had a close friendship with the King, something that despite the media scrutiny on Prince Andrew, never seems to be mentioned by legacy media). Kunt also produces an artwork entitled 'A Waste of Money', in which he displays 100 framed £10 notes on which he has wiped his arse. It should be noted that these notes are specimens, because the new notes featuring Charles's portrait are not yet available.
In an effort to find out definitively whether the reason behind the previous hits not being played or mentioned on the Radio 1 Chart Countdown was down to swearwords or subject matter, The Kunts released Scrap The Monarchy under the name The Krown Jewelz. Scrap The Monarchy charts at number 9, but the song title is not read out. The Official Charts dock Scrap The Monarchy over 5,000 sales, without which would have resulted in the song landing at number 2.
Kunt makes a long overdue return to the Download Festival comedy stage as Kuntford and Sons play an acoustic set, the highlight being the assembled crowd calling Prince Andrew a sweaty nonce in unison. Still on topic, following the revelations about Philip Schofield grooming a young male production assistant on the staff of This Morning, The Kunts release a new song Bum The Runner. The quickly cobbled together video of Mike dancing in wearing masks of Schofield and his paedophile brother, becomes Kunt's most watched video ever, with over 8 million views across TikTok and Facebook.
Following the death of Kunt's sister (and biggest supporter) Lilly in November, for Christmas The Kunts switch lanes and get behind The Krackpots - a mystery group fronted by strangely familiar puppets - and their song Proper Christmas - a love letter to the perfectly imperfect family Christmases of the late 70s and early 80s. Maybe it is too earnest and heart-warming, but despite hitting number 1 in The Official Download Chart it can't compete with the volume of legacy Christmas song streams and misses the Christmas Top 100. Word has it that the song was originally pitched to Suggs, who thought it was catchy, but that it was too much like early Madness, but we'll never know if that is true, what with The Krackpots being such an unfathomable mystery, like Banksy or Kendo Nagasaki.

2024
Shannon Matthews: The Musical... The Movie, directed by and starring Samantha Hindman as Karen and featuring music by Kunt and the Gang and The Kunts, premieres on consecutive nights at Vue in Leeds and Prince Charles Cinema in London ahead of a November release on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV. The film is debated on ITV daytime panel show Loose Women, quickly becoming apparent that none of the panellists have actually seen it.
After a number of appearances on the Dead Men Talking podcast, Kunt and the Gang makes a one-off return to the live stage, at their Dead Meet festival, before playing half a dozen unannounced support slots to The Kunts at their Christmas shows.

2025
Kunt marks the passing of two famous cultural figures with two new songs and accompanying videos. Is The Pope Gonna Croak? is hurriedly released when Pope Francis is taken ill, and Purple Aki's Coming To Town marks the passing of the North West's muscle-squeezing bogeyman. Under the pseudonym Chats and the Gang, Kunt lends his support to Chatham Town's first appearance in the FA Cup in nearly a century by co-writing and producing the track Loyal and True with help from Chatham fan Paul Rodgers and Rob Shepherd from The Singing Loins.
Having got a taste last year for playing live again, Kunt announces a slightly tenuous 25-date Kunt and the Gang 25th Anniversary tour, playing the minor internet hits in chronological order and telling the story of how he became (and remained) a minor internet hit singer. Supported by Ronnie Rude, the puppet alter ego of Rob Kirtley (AKA D.I. Radgitt from Shannon... The Movie) the tour sells out and also sees Kunt and the Gang make a long overdue return to the Edinburgh Fringe. Over the course of the tour Kunt passes on his legacy to a new generation by giving away his entire stash of over 800 wankmags.