poisondoor's video: Arbeid Adelt - Pro Vita

belgian cult band Arbeid Adelt! was formed in 1981 by Marcel Vanthilt (Max Alexander) and Jan Van Roelen (David Salamon). Together they produced the singles "Ik sta scherp" (which can be translated both as "I'm so sharp", or "I'm so horny"). Their first gig lasted only seven minutes as they had only 2 songs to perform : "Ik sta scherp" and "Schuld, mij treft geen ..." (Blame, I'm not to ...). Soon more songs were to follow. "De dag dat het zonlicht ..." (the day the sunlight...) was performed on national television in the program "Hitring" and was a shock-surprise. There was a lot of fuzz about the single because crooner John Terra felt upset. Just at that time he had a hit called "De dag dat het zonlicht niet meer scheen" (The day the sunlight stopped shining). Although the number was far from a cover version, the poor man felt attacked by the line "dat was de dag, de dag dat John met mijn vriend verdween). Later on, the group was joined by Luc Van Acker with whom they recorded the mini-album "Jonge Helden" (Young heroes). Their amusing lunacy and their inventive clips made "Lekker Westers" (Nicely Western) and "De man die alles noteert" (The man who takes notes of everything) popular favorites. "They split up after finishing their second mini-album "Le chagrin en Quatre-vingt". Only one year later, the group reformed without Luc Van Acker who was replaced by Willy-Willy on guitar (see Scabs) and Danny Klein at vocals (at that time backing vocalist with Catalog of Cool. She would later get famous with Vaya Con dios). They recorded a single ("Decoiffé/Stroom") but decided to split up again. The reasons : discontent with the record firm (Marcel in Mad in Belgium : "They saw us as a kind of clowns. They refused to bring out the songs that were representative of what we were doing, and released "Stroom" en "Witte kom hie". Those were both good jokes, good for a laugh at the live gigs, but not good as a release two years after your last record." and different opinions on the future of the group between the members. Marcel Vanthilt went on to broaden his horizon by becoming a Vee-Jay for the then emerging TV-station MTV and by getting involved with Justine, his American wife. In 1991 the group got together again and got a deal from Virgin which resulted in a Full CD "Des Duivels Oorkussen" . They went on tour with a complete 10 piece Big-Band but were not able to break through commercially, despite some nice songs such as "Spannend" (Tense), "Nergens heen" (nowhere to go) and "Met Kuifje in de Satteliet" (With Tintin in a Sattelite). Marcel Vanthilt left Arbeid Adelt! once again and picked up his television career, this time in front a national audience in his own television show "Tilt". After yet another disaster, he tried to emigrate to the States (2 years of trying to succeed in Hollywood, about which he has written a funny booklet and standup comedy theater-show called "Ha!Merika"), divorced his wife, came back to Belgium and is now hosting a quiz show for kids "Viavia" and a language game "Tien Voor Taal" for the VRT. In 2001, a musical microbe infected Marcel Vanthilt again, when he staged a poetry program together with Ad Cominotto (see Arno, Charles & Les Lulus) as "Vanthilt en Cominotto" entiteld: "U nu!" ("now it's up to you", also the title of the shortest dutch poem ever). In this show for the theaters (which also got released on a CD), Vanthilt and his companion traveled trough dutch poetry history, to prove that poems can be sexy, whacky, cool, moving, and set the music of today. With samples, soundscapes and piano, they gave new life to these lyrics, going from one of the oldest old-Dutch texts "Ghequest (ben ick vanbinnen)" to the punk poetry of Johnny the Selfkicker. Also in 2001, Marcel put himself "in the picture" by drawing the cover illustration for the Clouseau album "En Dans", on which he also got to sing/talk in one track. Band members : - Marcel Vanthilt (pseudo Max Alexander) : Vocals/Keyboard - Jan Vanroelen (pseudo David Salomon): Guitar/Keyboard - Luc Van Acker: Guitar and for a short period : - Willy Willy: Guitar - Dani Klein: Vocals source: http://houbi.com/belpop/groups/arbeidadelt.htm