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Famously Alive, the latest LP from experimental rockers Guerilla Toss, was Stereogum’s Album Of The Week in 2022. Now their former bassist Ben Katzman is famously alive on Survivor.
The Miami-based Katzman, who teaches guitar to kids when he’s not making music or running BUFU Records, was only officially part of the GToss lineup from 2015 to 2016; however he has reunited onstage with them since then, including in Denver last fall. His own band DeGreaser released the album Transcendental Shreditation in December. Currently Katzman can be found learning how to start a fire in the wilderness on the 46th season of CBS’ popular reality competition series.
“Survivor is a game of tribes, at least in the beginning,” Katzman told Miami New Times last month. “Being in a band, everyone has to work together for a common goal, and you hope you’re going to kick ass at the concert or the tour. Maybe the tour is like the long immunity challenge, and the reward is like getting to rock out for a lot of people and having people fuck with what you do.”
In his intro video, Katzman promises to “outwit, outplay, outshred” the other contestants.
Survivor returned to television last month, but no one at Stereogum has been watching Season 46, so we are a little late with this blog post (SORRY). However, we’re now caught up after seeing this photo of Katzman with Guerilla Toss’ Kassie Carlson, Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus, and Phish’s Trey Anastasio, which was captioned “NÜ SUPER GROUP OR SURVIVOR ALLIANCE ?!” (It’s a reunion of sorts; in 2022, Pavement toured with Guerilla Toss, and they hit a Phish show together.)
Meanwhile, while opening for Nation Of Language in NYC earlier this month, Guerilla Toss debuted a bunch of songs called “Psychosis Is Just A Number,” “Crocodile Cloud,” and “Red Flag To Angry Bull.” Watch the full set below.