If one form of backing tracks is cheating, then ALL forms of backing tracks is cheating. You making your own doesn't elevate you to some higher plane of "cheating", despite your high opinion of yourself. (You failed to brag about your 15-20 gigs per month. You slipping in your old age? And the cruise ships. Don't forget the cruise ships.) Backing tracks in any form still results in keyboard and horn players being unemployed.

There was a female duo here that sang over tracks. Nobody cared because they were both very good singers, and both extremely hot to a level where none of the men in the audience actually came to hear them sing. Their tracks were nothing more than a mutual producer friend removing the vocals with software, so they literally sang over the original band sans vocals. Cheating? Or just a shorter way to get to the same finish line every backing track group gets to eventually?

Several years back I was meeting a guy who wanted me to do some keyboards for him. The place we met had a small stage and there was a guy setting up. I paid no attention to him beyond noticing movement on that little platform. When he started I looked over and saw he was playing bass. BASS!!! How DARE he present himself as a solo act when all he did was play bass along with backing tracks? I mean guitar solos were tracks!! Short of putting a bass solo into every song, what is entertaining about watching somebody play the easiest instrument in the world of backing tracks? I mean, it's BASS! As I once told the bass player from one of my bands when he started to get too full of himself about how good "we" sounded, "Dude, WE (gesturing in a circle toward the actual real, actual, playing pieces like the horns and the keyboards) sound good. YOU are just here. If you were to have a stroke and die before a show, there are probably 5 or 6 people right in the audience who could come up and play your parts." A bass player can be replaced by the keyboard player's left hand. But by my own logic, that would also be cheating too, because iIf you want bass, hire a bass player (and pay him 3/4 scale). If you want horns, hire horns.

It becomes clearer and clearer why I can't keep a band together, doesn't it?

I am using the new 1040XTRAEZ form this year. It has just 2 lines.

1. How much did you make in 2023?
2. Send it to us.