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, ...