Music Midi #7: Life Under the Gun

a picture of the hardcore punk band Terror performing in a cramped concert venue (Real Art Tacoma). One stage diver is landing in the crowd as another prepares to jump off the stage. Behind them on stage hangs a banner that reads 'Welcome 2 Tacoma. Move it or lose it.'

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, Michael, and Jacob. Stick around after the puzzle for the playlist and a brief write-up!

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