Fifteen Minutes of Fame Music Entertainment

Originally Published on December 8th, 2025

~ About the Author ~

For a while, I have longed for collaborative work regarding publications on the Fifteen Minutes of Fame platform. I am thrilled to say that this wish has been realized today for the very first time. The FMOF platform is no stranger to Marc Schuster. Not only has Schuster been a feature artist reviewed in an article for his solo recording work, his band, DelCobras, have also been featured in a review as well as a Blind Reaction.

Marc Schuster’s talents extend beyond the studio and the stage, however. In addition to his musical attributes, he is a published author. He is the creator and founder of the Blog Abominations. He has hosted many radio shows and is currently the program director for AMS Radio. He has authored fiction and nonfiction books including the children’s book Frankie Lumlit’s Janky Drumkit. He has also written screenplays, produced, and composed for film.

Read the FMOF review of Hello Johnny by Marc Schuster

I’ve had the privilege of being featured in Abominations a couple of times; once for Fifteen Minutes of Fame and once for my own music. It is truly an honor to have him as a guest author for Fifteen Minutes of Fame.

How the Soul Exists in a Room Full of People: An Interview with Henry Caughey of Audiostar

~ It’s Like Bowling ~

by Marc Schuster

Listen, I don’t have all the details, but I know my grandfather was in a bowling league. This was my mother’s father. He came to America from Poland when he was four. His father served in World War One. Russian Army. Saw horses mowed down by machineguns. The family came to America with nothing, moved to Northeast Philadelphia where my grandfather’s father installed the first household toilet on the block. People from all over the neighborhood dropped by to watch it flush.

When my grandfather was a little older, he watched the first traffic light in the neighborhood go up. A little while after that, he bought a used Model T for twenty-five bucks. The hub caught on a woman’s skirt one day and tore it off. He was arrested for it, but his father was friends with an alderman who was friends with a judge, so he got off with a slap on the wrist that barely registered. Then the years went by, and he started a family. Personal details, too private to mention. But there was also the bowling league.

“They played their hearts out, not because there was some reward waiting for them, not because they were eyeing anything that might be termed the ‘big leagues.’”

He joined a league because that’s what people did back then, especially in places like Northeast Philadelphia where everyone worked in hosiery mills and bottling plants. They’d meet up at the bowling alley in teams of four. They’d bowl a few rounds. They’d keep score. They played their hearts out, not because there was some reward waiting for them, not because they were eyeing anything that might be termed the ‘big leagues.’

I’m not even sure they did it because they loved the game. The real reason they did it, from what I can tell, is that people just cared about what they did back then. If you were sweeping the porch, you swept like you meant it. If you were operating a forklift, you did it like you the world depended on you.  If you were bowling, you gave it your all. And you were honest about it.

My grandfather almost bowled a perfect game once. Strike after strike until the final frame when he scored a spare. The scorekeeper said he’d give it to my grandfather anyway, but my grandfather said no. The score wasn’t the point. The point was being in the game. The point was being out with his friends and living in the moment. It was a social outing, a social outlet. It may not have given life meaning, but it certainly gave life dimension.

Twenty-five years ago – a quarter of a century, if you, unlike me, can believe it – Robert D. Putnam wrote a book called Bowling Alone. It chronicled the decline of what he called “social capital.” His basic argument was that people used to be more social. They used to form clubs, start sports leagues, go to church, and generally engage with each other much more than they do now, “now,” of course, being then, which as we’ve established is a quarter of a century ago.

Before social media.

Before streaming.

Before you could spend your entire life inside the house without ever meeting even one of your neighbors, let alone walking six blocks to the nearest bowling alley.

“..despite the appearance of living in a hyper-connected world, we live increasingly isolated, lonely, and disconnected lives, sacrificing real face-to-face encounters for convenience.”

So I imagine the premise of Bowling Alone is even more cogent today that it was when Putnam wrote it: We’re all locked into shitty little lives where the forces of technology and cultural production have aligned to make each of us think that we’re the all-consuming center of the universe. Or, perhaps to put it more mildly, despite the appearance of living in a hyper-connected world, we live increasingly isolated, lonely, and disconnected lives, sacrificing real face-to-face encounters for convenience.

~ Social Media is like a Bowling League ~

One of the weird things about this world is that, like a bowling league, it has its own peculiar mechanisms for keeping score. We have followers. We have subscribers. We have likes. Over the years, we’ve had Q scores and Klout scores and influence scores measured by various behind-the-scenes internet phantasms. If we’re musicians, of course, we have streaming numbers and, as always, money.

Look at Spotify. You’ll see a number next to every song—assuming, of course, the song has been played at least a thousand times. Less than a thousand streams, and the song doesn’t get a number. It’s Spotify’s way of saying the song might as well not exist. Which gives them at least the appearance of an excuse not to pay the artist. More to the point, though, its purpose, like the purpose of all the social media score-keeping mechanisms, is to make the artist feel like shit. Because a consumer who feels like shit is a consumer who will spend money to feel less like shit. For Spotify, that includes the opportunity to get your song in front of more potential listeners: Shell out a few bucks and you, too, might become the next streaming sensation!

It’s what they called a mug’s game back in my grandfather’s day.

“..Stop worrying about the numbers. Stop worrying about your stats. Stop worrying about your revenue.”

It’s their way of making you think that your entire self-worth hinges on whether a bunch of people you’ve never met have heard a song you recorded in your basement. From an objective standpoint, that arrangement sounds kind of ridiculous. In the broader milieu of social media, though, it makes perfect sense. Because, again, the purpose of social media is to make you feel alone, like it’s you against the world, because when you’re alone and isolated, you’re much easier to target. To use another phrase from olden times, “you’re not just a mug, you’re a mark as well.”

So stop worrying about the numbers.

Stop worrying about your stats.

Stop worrying about your revenue.

You’re never going to win if that’s how you’re looking at the game.

Which isn’t to say that you shouldn’t put your music on Spotify. That decision is entirely up to you. My music is on there, just like it’s on all the streaming platforms. But the numbers aren’t an end-all-be-all for me. At best, they’re a vague indicator of something that ultimately doesn’t matter. At worst, they’re a source of mild anxiety—because I still do look at them despite my better judgment.

Because I’m curious.

Because I’m vain.

Because I’m human.

And, sure, there’s an argument to be made that music is a business, so musicians should take every opportunity they can to monetize their art. The problem with this argument, however, is that most (if not all) of the artists I know are horrible at business, which is actually fine in my book because businesspeople are pretty fucking boring. Besides, at the level I’m playing on, music is no more a business than bowling was a professional sport for my grandfather. And that was fine because he knew what mattered. Not his score, not whether he was taking his game to “the next level,” whatever that means, and certainly not the prospect of “going pro.”

He played the game and he played it seriously because it gave him a chance to be among other people who shared his interest. That interest could have been anything: stamp collecting, model trains, Civil War re-enactment. But for him, it was bowling, and it brought him closer to the real world. It allowed a boy from Poland who didn’t speak a lick of English when he arrived in the United States to become part of a community that made him feel welcome, which is exactly what I’ve come to love about making music.

I spent years in my basement having a grand old wank in the form of imaging myself to be a solo artist. I’d write all the songs, play all the instruments, do all the mixing and mastering, then send the song off into the ether, paying some middleman corporation like DistroBaby or CDKid to make my music available to the masses on all the major streaming platforms. I fell for the lone-genius myth hook, line, and stinker, pretending to be a latter-day Brian Wilson, layering sounds and crafting pop hooks to reel in the masses.

But I wasn’t getting anywhere—and I mean that literally. I’m an intense introvert by nature, so hiding out in my basement came naturally. And even though I considered myself part of an online community of likeminded indie musicians, there was something missing: real human contact. To be fair, COVID-19 was raging through a large swath of that period, but it only provided me with an excuse not to leave the house when what I needed was the opposite.

What I need was a bowling league.

Or failing that, a band.

~ Music is Like a Bowling League ~

I remember a moment of hesitation before telling Jim Lorino that I’d love to play bass with him if he ever felt like getting a band together. Like me, he made music at home. But unlike me, he was starting to get out and play in front of audiences under the name Scoopski. His music was fun and witty and he lived not too far from me, so when I interviewed him on my blog, I thought, well, maybe it would be cool to be in a band with him.

Maybe.

Or it could be a huge hassle— you know, leaving the house and whatnot.

But I sent the message anyway, and a couple of months later, I was playing bass in Scoopski. We rehearsed in my basement and played at local bars. The night of our first show, a guy named Mike Huff came out to see us play. He’s in a band called Bees!, and we’re all big fans, so it was great to see him in the audience. And when we played at other shows, he’d often be there, even when his band wasn’t playing. So we followed Mike’s example and did the same whenever possible, heading out to other bands’ shows whenever our schedules permitted.

Somewhere along the line, we went from being a five-piece to a three-piece and changed our name to DelCobras, but we still love catching our favorite acts whenever we share a bill: Log Flume, Granddogs, Sacred Monsters, Rescue Pets, Fataday Korngor, Jesse Gimbel, Scott Radway, Jima, Danvers, All the Living and the Dead, Unlucky Mammals, Cheap 52, Only on Weekends, Versailles, Longriend Timefriend, Strangeness in Proportion, Floorbird, Strange Neighbors, Worm Wagon, and, of course, Bees! Sometimes we meet touring bands like Diet Lite, Counterfeit Goods, Guest Bed, and Empty Heaven. Other times we play a little further afield at venues in New York and New Jersey, meeting artists like Polaroid Fade, Strange Neighbors, and Eytan Mirsky.

Sure, we talk about music, but we’re just as likely to talk about life in general: work, family, politics. It’s a context where “How’s it going?” isn’t a question about how many streams your new song got or which playlist picked up your song. It’s a question of genuine interest: Really, how are you? How’s life been treating since the last time we met? It’s a human connection that I imagine is at least somewhat akin to what my grandfather got out of his bowling league: a chance to catch up, a chance to unwind, a chance to be human.

At the end of the day, you can look at your relationship with music from any angle you want. Sure, it can be a business. And sure, numbers (kind of) matter. And, yeah, the friends you make on social media are important in so many ways. But there’s also a social angle that’s rooted in the real world. It can be complicated and messy, and if you’re at all like me, crossing over into that world can take you far outside of your comfort zone. But if you give it a shot, there’s a decent chance you’ll be gaining something far more substantial than a few followers on social media or a handful of streams on Spotify.

You’ll be joining a scene.

You’ll be gaining a team.

(End)

~ Final Thoughts ~

I don’t have much to say here because I feel that Marc has said it with eloquence. I too have been pondering this. I’ve deliberated on whether or not I should be diving harder into social media or if I should be abandoning it altogether. Marc’s point about numbers, algorithms, and stats designated to push us to “keep score,” is spot on and it exists within every platform. Meta have invested quite a bit of their platform to allow users to be able to analyze their own analytics on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. So have TikTok and YouTube. YouTube, like Spotify, has its own creator app that really breaks it down for any would-be content creator. And of course, there are ways to pay to “boost our exposure.” It’s manipulative and deceitful to the consumer because there isn’t a clear understanding of what the consumer is getting when they pay for these advertisements.

It’s a drug. It’s an addiction. Mark Zuckerberg, Daniel Elk, and all of the other billionaire CEO’s out there aren’t interested in making their consumers internet famous. They want to keep us clicking and scrolling through their platforms. So, it’s hard to want to keep doing it. However, their platforms are also remarkable in how they connect the entire world to each other. Through these platforms, I’ve built some incredible friendships; Marc’s being one of them. I want to continue to do that.

But there is also something else I want. Something I feel I’ve been missing. Something I think could be much more meaningful than doom scrolling or coming up with the pivotal idea that will make my music or my platforms stick.

I want to join a “bowling league.”