Under the Veil

By Ryan Simmons Photos by Brian Peters

If you drive by the Wis Tavern Building in Chicago, you won't notice anything out of place. The 120-year-old brick building sits comfortable in context with its neighbors.

It has large ground-floor windows, a legacy of the bar which operated from this location for 40 years. Through them, there can be seen an arcade machine, ping-pong table and a spiky, blue tin robot about the size of a lawn gnome.

But look up and you will notice the only outward sign of the total reconstruction it has recently undergone-- a set of wind turbines spins on the roof.

The Wis Tavern Building serves as the offices of indie record label Smog Veil, as well as the home of its founders, husband and wife team Frank and Lisa Mauceri. It's also now a radically unique building that produces half of its energy needs on site. And it is one of the reasons Smog Veil is at the forefront of mixing music with environmentalism.

Smog Veil was founded in Cleveland in 1991 by the Mauceri’s, long-time punk rock fans looking to release a few records by “friends who were in bands without label deals.”

Seventy recordings and 15 years later, the label had outgrown its original home in Cleveland.

The decision to relocate to Chicago was made because, in addition to its music scene, it has a mayor who had just declared his intention to make blue-collar Chicago the greenest city in the nation. The Mauceris’ had began to believe the traditional practices of the record industry were contributing to global warming and felt the move could be the golden opportunity in fostering a sustainable future.

From top-to-bottom, the house incorporates a laundry list of eco-friendly features. The roof sports a series of 20 rooftop solar panels and the striking helix-shaped wind turbines. Down in the basement a series of 15 geothermal wells, fluid filled tubes extending 60 feet into the earth, work to make heating and cooling more efficient year around. All together, the building generates 10,000 kilowatts per year, a full half of the buildings energy budget.

Although the infrastructure was completely overhauled, it was done -- whenever possible -- by recycling existing materials. Greg Gibson of Wilkinson Blender Architecture served as project manager for the building. He estimates 80 percent of the old materials that were torn out of the Wis Tavern Building were reused, such as the roof jousts which were used to build a new interior staircase.

He also makes note of one touch specific to Smog Veil. The label's old record stock was broken up and used to create terrazzo flooring.

“It's very cute, and it's something that's very specifically Frank and Lisa,” he says.

Part of living eco-friendly, for the artists, includes the operations of the label’s office, which are located on the first floor of the Wis Tavern Building.

The complete elimination of physical press kits has been just of the labels biggest successes.

“We use to send out about 300 press kits, and they'd be perhaps five pages long. It was quite a hefty package to send out,” recalls Ilka Pardinas, the label’s spokesperson.

Instead, Smog Veil now sends out a CD containing all the standard press materials in a digital form. In addition to saving a terrific amount of paper, it saves the label a significant amount of money. It's a reason why smaller labels like Smog Veil are in a unique position to lead the way environmentally while reaping benefits for themselves.

“We want to be at the forefront of a large movement” says Pardinas. “It would be a big coup if larger record labels were to follow our lead on this.”

The label has also worked to eliminate plastic jewel cases from its CDs in favor of recycled paper digi-packs, printed with soy based inks, which contain additional materials on the disc on par with paper-insert releases. These materials are also included with digital downloads, which the company someday hopes will entirely replace hard goods.

Realizing the opportunities to be greener and serve their customers through this transition, Smog Veil has not lost its appreciation for a well designed insert or press kit or album art.

“Frank and Lisa Love collecting albums, they love going to stores and browsing,” Pardinas says. “We certainly don’t want to snuff out small record stores.”

Smog Veil hopes their next big conquest as an eco-friendly label will be finding better ways for bands to tour.

Frank loves the accessibility of the punk movement and nothing is more important to Smog Veil than working to get artists out in front of the public. Still, the environmental costs of touring, whether through transport, use of electricity to run shows, or paper to print flyers, are very real. The Mauceri’s say they'll lobby the clubs where their bands play to purchase certified carbon offsets, to counter the environmental cost of touring.

Now less than six months after its doors opened, the Wis Tavern Building is a success on a number of levels.

For more info, go to: smogveil.com.