Call For Backup

[minimuggle]

I now have step 1 after taking a fresh look this morning. It took some Googling...

I still can't figure out how to get an 8-letter word. Either I didn't fully do step 1 or there's something else I don't recognize.

I'm in the same boat....

[minimuggle]

OK, I am finally finally off the couch. Jay basically had to kick me off the couch, though he did it very nicely......Nice puzzle but my brain hurts now from all the kicking.

[ReB]

Rather rudely shoved off the couch, but no broken bones or bruises.

[Cap'n Rick]

Nice puzzle, Jay! I was on the right track from the get-go, but I needed the nudges to finish.

[KayW]

Great meta, once I got it. Thanks Jay!

It took a LOT of help to extricate me from the couch this week. And the CALL FOR BACKUP was required.

[JeanneC]

This will be a learning experience for me. This is one of those I just never get. I will be very interested in seeing the trail to the Aha! on Sunday.

[DavyGravy]

I am literally glued to my couch. I think its superglue or some adhesive substance made by NASA!

[ajk]

Can't help feeling like I'm missing the easy part on this one, since I rapidly got to the point where (I think) the nudges are pointing.

[mkmf]

Didn't start until tonight. Got the partial drift but then needed the early nudges to get me off the couch. Very fun!

[Bird Lives]

Since the last count of noses, sixteen more solvers have joined the happy throng.

40. Eric Porter
41. edestlin
42. Dave C
43. bhamren
44. Cinny
45. Dave C
46. CPJohnson
47. dannyvee
48. LB800
49. minimuggle
50. ReB
51. Cap'n Rick
52. KayW
53. Carolyn
54. MarkWoychick
55. mkmf

It's about nine hours till deadline, so olly olly oxen free.

[Bird Lives]

The answer is PHARAOHS.

The clue for 65 Across is “Where to find backups, musically.” The answer is BANDS. Each of the four long entries ends with a plural noun that is the name of a band backup group, each associated with a particular lead singer.
,

S mokey Robinson and the Miracles
H ootie and the Blowfish
A dam and the Ants
M ike and the Mechanics

The initial letters spell SHAM. Some solvers, the instant they saw this, had a moment that was not so much AHA as it was HA HA — an amusing blast from the past that they had largely forgotten. That something was the musical group Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs.

For other solvers, SHAM meant nothing, and instead of finding an amusing memory, they turned to Google and the nudges. which sounds like it could have been a sixties rock group, but, as far as I know, was not. As I said in my intro, I suspected there would be wide variation in the relevant cultural knowledge that different solvers came in with. Smokey Robinson and Sam the Sham are from the 60s; Adam and the Ants, late 70s; Mike and the Mechanics, late 80s; Hootie and the Blowfish, 2000s.

Where are they now, those Pharaohs, Ants, et al.? Having been among the backups must be a great source of pride and satisfaction. I can imagine some superannuated rocker telling his grandchildren, “You know kids, your grandpa was a Shondel.”

Thanks to all for your submissions and kind comments.

[Dplass]

Then there are those of us dummies who knew Hootie and Mike but then Googled Smokey and Adam....and had SHAM and then DIDNT KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH IT. Yes, I just didn't even think to Google "SHAM and the..."

(Full disclosure: this is even worse than you think....


I work for Google....)

[JeanneC]

Never got it. And to think I played “Little Red Riding Hood” on my guitar when I was a wee lass!

[ajk]

Yeah, I got to SHAM in the first few minutes but it never occurred to me that it was a term that could be in a band name, and for some reason I didn't read the nudges to say 'google what you got from recognizing the band names in the first place,' even though in retrospect that seems obvious. Ah well, fun puzzle even if you only got as far as I did.

[DavyGravy]

Using the phrase "syntactic pattern" in your nudges totally threw me off. How is that related to the band names?