Saturday was a busy day in SoBu (South Bushwick, think this name will catch on?). We hit a snag with the plans for soundproofing in that my research I discovered that the air cavity we'd end up with would be maybe too little. Essentially, more air space means more sound isolation. It appears to go again logic, but we need fewer layers of drywall up there to get the best results. Please consult this handy diagram for relative STC (Sound Transmission Class) ratings (higher is better):
By keeping the original ceiling intact, we'd have a "triple leaf" which is less effective than a correctly-built double leaf. Of course, we're not really building a full double leaf (which would involve two sets of separate joists and is something that doesn't really fly for a ceiling that's only 6.5').
Ripping a ceiling down is fun. It took like a half hour to rip out some 150 square feet of double-layer drywall. It was a little tricky getting it out from around the pipes and conduit, but everything came out fine. Before we knew it, we had exposed all the joists (that probably hadn't seen light in 30-some years), happy to find nothing rotten or any human skulls or anything. The downside of course was the clean-up.
I had like 5 contractor trash bags left and those filled up within minutes with at least half the floor covered with rubble. Lucky for me, there's a contractor supply place two blocks away (Henry Distributors, 1674 Broadway) that sold me a box of 100 for $30. We bagged up the rest of the debris and Buzz started hauling the bags outside. Our cellar has those horizontal metal cellar doors with cement stairs leading down. While this is way better than the hole-and-ladder configuration most houses have, the stairs are really steep and the clearance of the doorway is minimal. And these bags were really really heavy. I don't know how we got all 10 (!) out onto the areaway so quickly. We basically were done in two hours (though it would take four hours to begin to recuperate for me).
As of Friday all the supplies have been ordered, most of which will be delivered Saturday morning. I'm annoyed with the new snowfall, as it almost definitely means nobody will be showing up today to pick up the trash, and it means it the plywood I've been storing out back will be all snow-covered, and I need that stuff indoors so it can dry out. There are still a few things I'm not sure how we'll handle but at least we're getting there.
The rest of the evening was spent going to the early show at the Knitting Factory to see Trans Am, Oneida and Big Bear. I wanted to go to this show because I really like Big Bear. But I was disappointed by the set; one of their guitarists left the group and appears to have been replaced by some keyboardist (red flag!), and worse, the lead singer is no longer barking in that shredding 'hardcore' screamo voice and sounds now like a little girl shrieking into the mic. She mentioned something about being sick, but it occurs to me that she says this at nearly every show. And wouldn't a cold actually make a voice more guttural and scratchy? I guess singing that way has finally taken its toll.
Oneida was good, as usual, but I don't think I like seeing them at clubs like this. They played some old stuff like "All Arounder," which was always one of my favorites. They didn't play "Up with People," which was fine with me, I'm getting a little tired of that one. We went to Nancy Whiskey Pub at the early hour of 10:30 and somehow stayed until the bar closed. There was a bacherlorette party going on there with a lot of sorority-types present. At first irritated by their presence, we concluded that it was admirable for people like that to have a bacherlorette party at a bar known mostly for its grizzly old men who hang out there.
