The Color Guard

Founded by singer and guitarist Lalena Fisher and bassist Jeanne Gilliland, The Color Guard performed their complex-but-catchy heavy rock songs in their home base of New York City as well as around the Midwest from 2000-2007. They released four CDs. Visual artist Fisher had co-founded The Hissyfits while attending Pratt Institute in 1996, but left that band in 1999. The Color Guard’s first lineup—with Valerie Massimi on lead guitar and Chris Lee on drums—recorded a self-titled debut CD-EP with engineer Louie Lino in 2000, and Fisher created unique handmade packaging for each copy. Their second release was the full-length album Speech for Heated Hearts in 2002, recorded by Hillary Johnson. For this CD, Nina57 played lead guitar and opera-trained Jake Alrich played drums and sang harmonies along with Gilliland. The album received a highlighted "Listen 2 This" recommended review in Entertainment Weekly, and four stars from Allmusic.com. The band recorded their second full-length with Louie Lino in 2004 and titled it Dark Pop. Josh Zisman served as lead guitarist, and the album featured the talents of three different drummers: Caryn Havlik, Norie Manigault, and Jake Alrich. The band considers Dark Pop its most masterful release. Cornucopia was The Color Guard’s final farewell release in 2007; they recorded it at NYU with additional tracking at Zisman’s home studio. Joe Salvati played drums on the six-song EP, which was paired with a performance DVD documenting a show at CBGB 313.