The Friday Swaps

The Friday Swaps are a two-man, bi-coastal band that collaborates by swapping recorded snippets every Friday. In late 2014, Pete Weiss was asked to participate in UK-based WIAIWYA Records' 7777777 series, which is an annual release of seven 7-inch records by various artists, based around a yearly theme. 2015's theme is simply "collaboration," so Pete contacted his old pal Chris Ballew (Caspar Babypants, Presidents of the USA, etc.) to see if he wanted to collaborate. Chris said yes and immediately suggested the two (who live on opposite coasts of the U.S.) should swap musical ideas and recordings every Friday, and eventually form finished songs from the ideas. The "band" would be dubbed The Friday Swaps. The experiment went swimmingly, with Chris and Pete each working out of their respective studios, and dutifully ftp-ing sound files to each other. The results are the catchy and oblique "What Time" and the absurd and oblique "Hot Dog Race."