For this week’s Backtrack Day, I thought I’d do a little backtracking into 100b itself and check up on some bands that we’ve written about (mainly in New Band Day posts) in the past. Some of them have gone on to make fantastic albums (1990s, Guillemots, Jamie T, Hot Club De Paris, Jeremy Warmsley) and some went straight onto my favorites-of-all-time list (Pop Levi, The Bicycles, Cold War Kids, The Long Blondes). But what about those bands that we haven’t heard much about since we first wrote about? I did a little searchin’ and found out …

Give Half To The Monkey is one of my very favorite New Band Day finds but, sadly, there doesn’t seem to be much to find out about their current activities. There’s not too much updating going on over at MonkeySpace, and Google coughs up nothing about these guys. I can’t even find an mp3 to offer you all, but if you head over to Bebo, they’ve got loads of songs streaming. I sure hope Give Half To The Monkey is still around and doing what they do, because they are seriously great.

Unfortunately, there’s no big news for Kitty, Daisy and Lewis either. They appear to be playing live regularly, but there’s no future releases or recording news listed anywhere. I guess we shouldn’t be too hard on them, they are still in school after all. Have a listen to this, one of their few released songs, and hope for something new soon.

   Kitty, Daisy and Lewis - Mean Son Of A Gun

Vampire Weekend, on the other hand, are cruising right along. Their debut EP was released over the summer and it didn’t take long for them to get all signed up with XL Recordings. Their first single with XL, “Mansard Roof” will be out on October 22nd and their debut album is scheduled for January 2008.

   Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma

Shout Magic, another favorite of mine, apparently had some line-up changes recently. But they’ve still managed to record another EP, which will be available soon. I assume it will be up for download from their website like the first one (which is still there, by the way, so grab it before they come to their senses) - I’ll be keeping a lookout for it.

   Shout Magic - Branch Davidians

The Deadly Syndrome is actually a band Tamboosh found, back in 100b’s earliest days, and I ended up loving them as well. Their debut album, The Ortolan will be out on September 11th on Dim Mak. I’m pretty excited about that - I think I’ll make a Mustachio to keep me busy while I wait.

   The Deadly Syndrome - Emily Paints

It looks like there’s some exciting stuff on the way, no?