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I toyed with the idea of just having what I think are the two main characters as 'lead singers' but thought that would be yet another complication after my brain had turned to sponge counting letters! Not one for anyone with a hangover.

Hi folks, yes, major brain-ache and I haven't reallygot into the endgame yet!
So please help me with my last one to solve - 15, Heavy metal linked to additional vice from early seventies (5) That's a lot of words for five letters and the four I already have don't look hopeful!
Then I'd be really grateful for confirmation of the second letter in the endgame ie the one that comes after the top one at 1.
OR confirm how the distance markers work. Is it 18 letters inbetween the two letters you need, which would effectively be 19 on; or is it the 18th letter on?

Lumen, 15 is an American vice president from the 70s. He served under Nixon.

You count 18 letters from the top letter at 1 which gives you an H, then 8 letters from there etc. Be careful when you get to the clashes!

Ah right that kind of vice. And I see how he helps to make a hidden thematic name.
I now have some of the singers but still that first one isn't working for me. I'm thinking the first one may be more general, not specifically a name.

I fell into that trap too at first. There is a clash at the 4th letter, which gives you two choices of how many letters to move from there. If you choose the right one, it will lead to a longer word than the one you've probably got (hope that makes sense).

I don't really understand the clash resolution bit, so I'll leave it to someone else to explain it. I relied on reverse engineering to decide which letters to use and, the Lord be praised, it worked.

Lumen
As Loge says, there is an element of 'trial and error' in the end game with the clashes. You will hit the first clash in the fourth letter of the first name. Just try both and you should see the right option fairly quickly- as Loge says, it's a longish name.

For the grid you keep the 'wrong' option and discard the 'right' one i.e. the distance marker as per the preamble: well, rightly or wrongly, that's the way I interpreted it. And remember to keep going round and you will accumulate six names and will land on the other two clash cells along the way.

Thanks Muraria. I think that's what I did with the clashes, but I really can't be bothered to go through it all again to check. You've set my mind at rest, though.

That was too much of a slog for me.

Incredible construction but, in my view, the actual payoff wasn’t enough of a wow bearing in mind the effort to get there.

That said, I enjoyed a lot of the thematic musical stuff throughout the cluing, even if it was tough to cold solve some of them.

Funnily enough I’m about half way through an equally challenging effort by Harribobs in this months’s Magpie. I’m hoping for a good payoff there but now I’m a bit worried!

Anyone done it to give me the encouragement to keep going?

I found the clash of letters made it very difficult to solve my last few clues near the bottom of the grid.
When I came to the 3 clashes, I used one letter towards the name and the other letter to count forward.
I lost my place several times, and found it difficult to read the letters on top of the coloured cells.

I have most of the grid filled, with a few problems. I have 7, which seems to go back with a clash - is that right? I can't work out 7/11. I think I have 9*, but can't see where to put her. And I have no idea about 13*. Looking for the singers, I seem to start with one I have never heard of, from a non-Anglosphere band. Am I on the wrong track entirely? Not my favourite genre, so I'm not too well informed about its stars.