Guided By Voices / Girls Versus Boys - 8 Rounds Split EP (1997)

As if their acronyms didn't get mixed up enough already, this tongue-in-cheek split EP features both Girls Against Boys and Guided By Voices going at it live in a radio station's studio under one banner. For an intentionally slapdash charity event, this one's actually not bad. Girls Against Boys get in the first four tracks, and between the gruff sonic muscle of "Vera Cruz" and the commendably messy "Kill the Sexplayer," the capture of the band's live brawn is worth the price of admission alone. Not that Guided By Voices slack off in the second half. Robert Pollard's vocals have that raspy strain well-known in college rock circles, yet thankfully -- as in "Shocker in Gloom Town" -- the lunkheaded AC/DC rock blasts of the band save the day. Easy as that. The judges may still be bickering about which band deserves the technical knock out, but a modest, pretension-free charity record like this deserves almost all of the points.