We'll all have our personal flavor of "our" story, and here is my take on it.

I had this burst of creativity hit me about March this year. A girl I was really quite stuck on had told me in mid February that her life was just too busy with her 2 bands and her kids and still fighting off her ex in court and she just didn't have time to give me. (I thought it should be MY decision that mattered about how much time is enough, but that isn't really relevant to this discussion.)

So when that all unfolded, I had all these lyrics come out, all these melodies to put them with, and BIAB, now RB. I now have 10 songs for a CD, 6 of which I think are "recordable" quality right now, 4 more to redo in RB as time allows. They are 95% RB, 5% me adding addition piano, guitar, synth, whatever, and the vocals.

And if anybody asks about it, I tell them "It's all me." which is not a lie. It is me composing, conceiving, putting theory to work while programming the chord charts, piecing those solo snippets together into acceptable solos, playing supporting parts and singing. So it's not a lie. It's just not all of the truth.

Most of the people I would play these for understand the time factor involved with teaching a band these songs, and those same people care more about the writing than the performance. I paid for the program one time. It has not asked me for a raise. It has never talked back or have an attitude when I didn't like the solo. It's never pate for rehearsal, doesn't drink too much at gigs, never wastes time at practice restringing a guitar, noodling between songs to impress themselves with guitar licks that don't fit this music, never whines about the music I select to play.... it's the perfect band member.

I would suspect those who turn their nose up at BIAB/RB are probably protesting too loudly and they are just too cheap to buy it, or lack the basic computer skills to run it.

My reply to anyone who would take me to task that my iPod band is Real Band would be something that the auto censor would cut of of this reply. I will go as far as to say that the first word of that reply rhymes with truck....

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.