I enjoyed it and ended up knowing all the answers, with work. My only complaint is that the lettering in the instructions was so small I had trouble reading it. Also, it would be easier to find the clues and put them in place if either 1} the Bands did not use letters for those clues--use numbers or 2) the Rows used numbers for those clues.
Marching bands is joining the spiral as my favorite variety puzzles after the acrostic.
2
TO CAITLIN:
I remember “narco” being used as far back as the late 1960’s to mean a plainclothes narcotics cop.
This also reminds me of how another word, “nark”, sometimes causes confusion when something written in England is read in the U.S. “Nark” in Britain means a police informant, not a narcotics agent.
1
I had a lot of fun with this. It started very easy as others have said, and I had the same problem with TIRE FIRE. But mainly I was pleased to have this to do as I did so badly with the Friday puzzle. It's so satisfying when the right combination of letters suddenly work.
2
I just wrote a long comment about "Church chorus" (singular) referring to AMENS (plural), which is okay-ish but not great IMHO, if you excuse a spoken bunch of AMENS as a single "chorus" figuratively speaking.
Before submitting it, I tried to move a couple of words by drag and drop, which made the whole comment disappear. Too miffed to retype it all out again.
GRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1
I was so happy to see Marching Bands again!
[SPOILER ALERT]
Rows 1, 2, 10 and 13 were gimmes.
Sometimes an apparent gimme is intentional misdirection. That is what I suspected when the “obvious” MASTER CARD turned out to be AMEX CARD. (I of course did not yet have the first word of that line.)
Row 11, overlapping with C(d) and C(e), was the hardest for me. I first had I GUESS SO instead of I GET IT. I realized that the former had to be wrong, but then I had ACT ONE instead of ACT I. Not realizing that the apostrophe was a TEAR did not help.
I had to search to find ACT ONE/ACT I, CADENCE, STIR and CIVIC.
I was surprised at myself for not knowing PELOSI until I had most of the letters.
1
I love Marching Bands and other Variety puzzles. In this one, I'm flummoxed by the first clue in Band E, 'Keep from congealing...' and the intersecting 5b, 'Complete disaster...'. Help!
5
I also had trouble with that line, and had to search for STIR.
Before now, I don’t think I ever heard of TIRE FIRE.
Further elucidation:
The church chorus is AMENS, not AMEN.
That was the last line to fall for me. I assumed STIR, but didn't know what a STIRE FIRE was.
All I can say is, AMEN(S) to that. :)
Double or Nothing is my absolute favorite among the “middle” puzzles.
[SPOILER ALERT]
The trick always is to get what I call an “anchor” square to start with. This time it was the third square in Row 8, which I realized had to contain the PE of BANANA PEEL and ST. PETE.
All three geographical names were gimmes.
1