The Diversity of Classic Rock Turns 10!

Happy birthday to The Diversity of Classic Rock! It’s a big milestone and I would be remiss if I don’t write something to commemorate it, so here we go! It’s now official! I can truly say that I’ve been a writer for a decade. So in this blog post I will reminisce on the different eras of the blog. If you’re new to the blog, Hello, I’m Angie Moon and this is my journey. If you’re a veteran, you’ll probably remember all of this so I’ll keep it short, well as short as it is possible for me, as my writing style is very prog rock, long-winded.

Humble Beginnings

I started this blog when I was just 20 years old with no expectations of being a writer. I was taking a class called Introduction to Social Media and I was told to create a blog about a topic of my choice. I had this idea in my pocket for about a year, dating back to the radio station in Chicago, where the programme director told me off for playing music that was too white, too male, and too straight. I objected and said classic rock is indeed very diverse, what are you talking about? It’s not just what’s on the radio.

My original goal was to be a classic rock DJ, so I pivoted from one dying medium to another. What genius does that? Why couldn’t I just study something useful? Oh well, what’s done is done and I can confidently say I’ve had an interesting life writing about rock and roll.

Back in those days I was very much a 1960s/1970s purist, having almost no interest in anything outside of those time periods. Those were the eras that I lived and breathed. I’m still passionate about them today, but I’ve expanded my horizons as I’ve written, researched, and interacted with my peers. A good artist should never be stagnant and while I would never call myself good at what I do, or an artist, I have taken these principles on board and see myself as someone who is ever-evolving and a sponge absorbing and appreciating the art around me, taking inspiration from everywhere.

Photos of me back then show me with reddish hair in a long Beatle-style haircut wearing 60s a-line mini dresses, and weirdly enough no makeup! I was a waifish girl back then so that style suited me well. However, I always had that 60s dandy look on my mind, but wouldn’t adopt that for another five years.

Turns out I liked writing so much that I continued doing it and I expanded the scope of my blog over time to be more than just showcasing the diversity of people and sounds of classic rock, classic rock meaning on this blog music from the 1950s to the 1980s. There’s only so much you can talk about in that lens, so I made myself into a classic rock storyteller. I just tell stories about classic rockers.

I always felt like an outcast in the LGBT scene where I was because I was into classic rock while everyone else was into more poppy music, but through my research I found that classic rock indeed is very gay.

I was looking for a job…

My degree is in something that isn’t exactly employable, especially not in Ireland, where the media industry is incestuous and limited. No one really wanted to take a chance on a recently graduated foreigner, not even music publications, so I doubled down and kept writing this blog, making a few bob here and there. I was stuck in Ireland because that’s where my husband is from and he was doing a PhD in the incredibly vibrant, beautiful city of Limerick (sarcasm obviously!). Much like how listening to classic rock was my escapism when going to secondary school in a small town in Florida, writing about music was my escapism while surviving living in Ireland. It was a big change for me because America is so much larger and more lively and before moving to Ireland I was living in Chicago, a city that is near and dear to my heart even though it’s been nearly a decade since I’ve been there.

The Chronic Illness Years

Perpetual unemployment was already enough of a frustration for me so the universe threw me a punch in the gut. While I was in university I was really skinny, effortlessly too even though I was on birth control to keep the pain from periods away (it worked, until it didn’t). Suddenly when I turned 25 I found myself looking more filled out and starting to experience back pain. Am I suddenly over the hill? That’s what I chalked it up to, ageing. That was 2019. Little did I know this wasn’t simply ageing. I was chronically ill!

Then in 2020, I started getting periods again after four years of period-free bliss thanks to the pill. I’ve had painful cramps since the age of 13 that were so crippling that walking and standing was painful. But these cramps started coming with back pain and increased in frequency over time. I wouldn’t just get cramps when I got my period, I’d get cramps throughout the month and I’d spot throughout the month. Not only that, but it was unpredictable. I never knew when pain and periods would strike. This made it even harder for me to get a job. Not only do I have this long-ass CV gap, I also have a chronic illness. Who on earth would hire someone who has pain like me when there’s plenty of healthy job seekers out there?

The pandemic was convenient because of lockdown, I had an excuse to sit in bed all day, occasionally going to the living room to play Animal Crossing. However, there was a negative side to this. Seeing a doctor in Ireland was difficult enough as it was before the pandemic. The pandemic made everything worse and I couldn’t get in contact with the doctor at all for months, and part of me wondered if my pain was severe enough to necessitate a doctor’s visit.

By 2021, I’d had enough and I got in contact with my GP and told them everything that had happened over the year and that I wanted a hysterectomy to end my pain. I got referred to a gynaecologist to talk about it. I was shocked that my GP was so supportive in that. She wasn’t sure if I’d get approved for a hysterectomy because of my age and childfree status (I was infertile anyway, so that was already decided for me), but she did what she could do. This meant more waiting.

That same year, I was going crazy and needed a project, something to focus on and take my mind off the pandemic and my dismal surroundings and so I took another idea that was in my back pocket, thinking about the connections The Kinks and The Beach Boys had with true crime. What if I wrote a blog post about the connections between classic rock and true crime? I presented my idea with the list of musicians I was going to talk about (this list expanded as I did my research) to my husband and he was like that shouldn’t be a blog post, that should be a book! And so I started writing Crime of the Century: Classic Rock & True Crime, the work I’m most proud of, even if like three people enjoyed it. I did some in person events talking about my book and sold my book at indie book fairs, blowing people’s minds with my encyclopaedic knowledge of classic rock and celebrity true crime.

Even if my book hasn’t really gone anywhere, I’m still proud of the fact that I wrote an entire book and maintained this blog through a chronic illness. That’s a real accomplishment, not letting my illness be an excuse to be idle.

…And then I found a job

In 2024, I began my 30s with a glow-up. Gone was the bloating that I thought was healthy weight gain and gone was my uterus. I worried that I would get fat after my hysterectomy, as I’ve seen a lot of horror stories about that. But if anything I’m skinnier now that I’ve ever been, measurements wise. It’s clear that my natural build is really skinny and it’s funny that it kinda masked two conditions in different ways. My wide hips, thick thighs, and oval face masked my eating disorder, making me look like I wasn’t underweight even though I was practically skeletal elsewhere. At the same time, my body masked my bloating from adenomyosis (basically like endometriosis but only in your uterus) because it made it look like I had wider hips and a bigger butt, and I actually did and while my waist was larger, it still looked comparatively small. Proportionally I’m the same, but a good bit skinnier and I feel great.

The years and years of writing, researching, networking, interviewing, and making connections in the industry eventually paid off. Despite my years without a job thanks to the bad jobs market and my chronic illness, I managed to land a job in content marketing and I did well there. It was part time so I could still devote time to writing.

The role concluded after a few months and I fell into a depression, having difficulty putting pen to paper, or rather fingers to keyboard to type words. I felt worthless because no one really liked my book and I could never hold down a job for more than six months. I was crying all the time and I would only post sporadically. I thought this could be the opportunity to write another book, but I was like forget it, what’s the point of writing another book about dead people no one cares about? But there were signs that I’d see that I needed to return to writing and I saw them when I was in Florida visiting my grandma in the winter of 2024 and on social media multiple times. I’ll talk about it later when I really make progress on the next book. Chapter one is in progress, I’ll say that.

I got a job offer at the start of the year and I’ve been swamped so that’s why I’ve been quiet lately. Things are looking up career wise for me, but I’m exhausted and now that I’m away from my passion, I miss it. I just wish that there was more money in creative pursuits like this. I wish we lived in a world where we could automate mundane jobs so we can free ourselves to focus on what we truly love doing. I’m exhausted and there’s only so many hours in a day. I’d rather focus on a career that rewards me financially, rather than spread myself too thin and risk jeopardising it. I like what I do, don’t get me wrong, but nothing beats talking about classic rock or true crime. As the saying goes, distance makes the heart grow fonder. I can’t wait to fall down more research rabbit holes for this next book and I know there will be a lot of them. While this next project isn’t purely classic rock, there will be some classic rock chapters in it and I’ll try my hardest to inject classic rock references into every chapter, as classic rock will always be a core part of who I am.

Despite this break, just know that I am inspired and I’m thinking about my little classic rock community I’ve built. Thank you so much for all of your support. I look forward to sharing more classic rock and celebrity true crime related projects with you.

Love,

Angie