Who: Jim Di Gioia
What: As a diversion to my days spent listening to and blogging about music, I dabble in elementary school education.
Where: Welland, ON, Canada, in the heart of the Niagara Region
When: 1973 (you do the math)

Why: Why not?

In 2006, after being a fan and regular reader of many music blogs, I decided to launch my own and share my thoughts and opinions with the world (or the world who stumbled upon my blog accidentally).

Quick Before It melts takes its name from a Cinerama song of the same name ( that can be found on their album Torino).  There was never a clear agenda when I started the project, but QBiM did have it’s roots in my first foray into the blogosphere, a project called The Act of Just Being Here (that borrowed it’s name from a line in the Stars song “What I’m Trying To Say” from the album Set Yourself On Fire).  TAOJBH, as I affectionately referred to it as, was borne out of a brush with mortality at a younger age than I should have experienced (I believe I touched on that experience here).

Since the end of The Act Of Just Being Here and the birth of QBiM (surely by now that acronym needs no explanation), I have been spending far more time than I ever imagined living out my childhood rock ‘n roll fantasies.  In my heart of hearts I always knew I could not carry a tune, and though my fingers were lean and nimble, they could neither pluck a steel string, or plonk an ivory key with any precision.  Trivial information about producers, release dates, record labels, b-sides and rarities were another matter all together.  It was (and still is) a crying shame that most in my circle of acquaintances didn’t take a liking to the same style and genre of music as I did, so I had to allow my fascinations and useless knowledge acquisitions gestate until technology evolved far enough to allow me to effortlessly share them with the rest of the world via the big, imaginary highway you are currently riding on.

QBiM began life on Blogger (http:///qbim.blogspot.com–but don’t bother going there, it’s not the same anymore) and used a variation of the Minima template that I coveted from Skatterbrain.  In 2008, after Blogger and I had a falling out, QBiM migrated over to WordPress, where the Minimalism theme became the basis for the look and feel you are currently enjoying.  It’s actually not much different from what it looked like before we moved from Blogger (and by “we” of course I mean me and my sense of self-importance that makes me refer to myself in the first person plural).

QBiM’s browser of choice is Firefox (on which it looks fantastic), and is made on an iMac and/or a MacBook.  It started life on a Mac mini, but like all good things, it was eventually replaced by a faster, more agile and, ultimately, more expensive machine.

The header image was created by me, so if you don’t like it, keep it to yourself.  I don’t have any training as a web designer, and I’m afraid you’ll laugh if i tell you how I made it.  However, I’m currently stumbling my way through learning Adobe Illustrator, so maybe some day soon, the header will get a makeover.

I currently have a room in my house that is solely dedicated to storing the multitude of bubble mailers I’ve been sent promo CDs in.  I can’t bring myself to throw them out, so there they wait until I can recycle and reuse them.  Please for the love of whatever deity you worship, drop me an email at CONTACT [at] QUICKBEFOREITMELTS [dot] COM with a link to Myspace pages, or to MP3s you’d like me to listen to.  I prefer not getting emails with MP3s, and I truly prefer getting emails from someone who has taken a moment to look at what I’m currently listening to and posting about.  Having said that, just because you sent it doesn’t mean I’ll always listen to it, like it, or (sadly) be able to personally respond.  Don’t take it personally; I do the same thing to my mom.  It’s just me.

On a similar note, it’s not often that I write about or post something that could be constituted a “negative” review, but hey, not everyone in the world is going to like you, so if you can’t stand the criticism, then I think you’re in the wrong business.  Having said that, I’m not in this game to put people down, so I can’t really for the life of me ever imagine intentionally doing something like that.  It will depend on just how badly you tick me off.

How: I can be reached by any one of the methods below.