Kachwords

This puzzle's title comes from the track by Microwave (yes, a band called Microwave) on today's playlist, and indeed, I have been wasting all my time… making crosswords! I may as well tease some other bands on the playlist that aren't spoilers themselves, so you can look forward to an interesting mix with a lot of heavy music, everything from Julien Baker, to Rage Against The Machine, to Danny Brown. Seen live count this week: six out of ten! We're so back! I seeded this one with a couple favorite tracks, and they fell into place nicely in this 12x. I think I'm settling into a "weekly-ish" rhythm, still trying to refine my grids and fill as I go, but I'm pretty happy with this one. As usual, I'd like to thank my test solvers, Sam and Michael! I'll have my usual little writeup after the puzzle if you're so inclined. fullscreen , .puz , .pdf , .pdf solution

Two weeks since my last puzzle, mea culpa! I got caught up with life stuff (and concerts, of course). Spent the first weekend of March in Tacoma, Washington for Just Another Gig Vol. 5, an excellent hardcore punk festival. I even slipped one of the headliners into puzzle #6! Another part of the delay on this puzzle is simply that my standards for myself have escalated perhaps a little too high in such a short period of time. I've been pushing for more ambitious grids, and I was tired of dealing with 3-letter fill, so I spent ages finding fill that made me happy in this neat little 12x13 that is only packing four 3-letter entries. I played around with a lot of seed entries before landing on these two horizontal spanners, but was determined to squeeze in one relating to one of my favorite current bands, who I just saw for the second time last week! This time, the "seen live" count is 3 out of 8 on the playlist. As always, thank you to my test solvers, Quiara,

Finally getting #6 out here, I've been pretty busy lately! I checked out three different concerts this past weekend (Otoboke Beaver, Squid / Water From Your Eyes, and The Hotelier / Foxing / Glitterer), and I've got a whole festival this next weekend, so it might be a week before #7 as well... We'll see. Seen-live count this week is 3 out of the 10 artists on the playlist. The seed entries for this puzzle were the spanners: one band I'm seeing at that festival this weekend, another band from my hometown. The grid came together pretty quickly, with some fun, open areas for an 11x, but it took a bit longer to be happy with the clues. As always, thank you to my test solvers, Lila and Jack! fullscreen , .puz , .pdf , .pdf solution

I took a slightly longer time on this one, especially with the holiday weekend, but I'm also trying to do slightly more ambitious grids these days. With that in mind, this week we've got my smallest puzzle yet, a 9x9 with a bunch of shorter fill… but six spanners! "Seen live" count… three out of seven, but seeing a fourth next weekend. The seeds were a recent favorite song and an all-time favorite band; check out my post-puzzle notes for more info! My first pass yielded a lot of great music-tie-in fill for such a small puzzle, but had some brutal short fill, so I gave it a rework and wound up pretty happy with this take. Let me know what you think! And thanks, as always, to my test solvers: Michael, Jacob, & Quiara. fullscreen , .puz , .pdf , .pdf solution

Time for Music Midi #4, another 11x! The tally for "bands seen live" this week is… three out of the eight featured on the playlist, which goes all the way from disco pop to sludge metal. This puzzle's seed entries were two different two-word band names that i was able to split in symmetrical places in the grid, including the band that I saw most recently (pictured above, and that I was originally attempting to fit into puzzle #3 ). Those four seed words made it trickier to slip more things in, but it was a fun challenge when constructing it! Also, the title comes from the playlist track from the other of the two seed entries. Check them out in the playlist after your solve! And, as always, thank you to my test solvers, Michael and Lila, for your time and feedback. fullscreen , .puz , .pdf , .pdf solution

Alright, time for entry number 3 in the series, a 12x, my largest yet. I did not squeeze in that band I recently saw, as I hoped I would, but they're in my draft for the next grid, so stay tuned. The seeds for this one were some recent fave 12-letter entries, but the grid wound up far more constrained than #1. A few bits of fill I could tie into a playlist guided my hand and I wound up digging the fill, so I hope this is a smooth solve with a fun playlist after you finish! And, of course, thank you to test solvers Michael and Jack. fullscreen , .puz , .pdf , .pdf solution