If I absolutely had to choose I'd say Patton's work with Dillinger Escape Plan (the Irony Is a Dead Scene EP) is my favourite of his billions of collaborations. Any talk [cv.org] of future collaborations with any members of that band fills me with excitement.

However... Patton's projects are often discussed years before they appear in print (CD) and often they never appear.

For example off the top of my immediate head:

• His songs with Massive Attack?
• New Tomahawk, or Fantomas or Peeping Tom albums?
• The Lovage album that is apparently done and just waiting on vocals?
• Nevermen?

I could go on.

Meanwhile he surprises us with one-off collaboration songs with various artists, or movie scores, or Faith No More reunions. Things I can't complain about really... but it would be nice to deliver on some of the actual announced work one day.

Report: Musos Make $12k From $1.2b Industry [Mess and Noise]

Another recent report suggested a figure around $19k.

It is assumed that because these are averages, and because we assume those at the top are highly paid, the figures aren't telling the whole story.

I don't think the problem is that they're averages, it is that they're lumping "live performers" into one pile.

Personally I'd put live musicians into these categories:

• Musack - The piano player paid to play all day in the corner of a restaurant, may even include those acoustic cover bands that quietly play in the corner of pubs
• Cover bands (including tribute acts) - "Big name" cover bands that are in themselves an act people have paid to see
• Charting bands - Your huge bands, but also your indie bands that people have heard of. Ticket prices for anywhere between $15 to $100.
• Non-charting bands - Indie bands that no more than 100 or so people can be expected to have heard of.

I'd love to see what percentage of each is included in the report and how much (on average?) each group made.

I might follow up this with some real figures on what my band made, but I feel I should check with the others first. I'll get back to you. I think at the least I'll describe the typical payment structure of a gig.

In short, I feel I can tell you we never made anywhere near what we spent. If you ignore costs, we would still never had got anywhere near that $12k in our whole career, including CD sales.