When Ashley Toman and Patricia Kline sit down behind their ornate six-foot harps, they will not play the angelic arias that most people associate with the instrument. Instead, they will play Metallica. “We’re just two girls with really big, big harps playing Metallica songs”, said Toman, Baton Rouge resident. Harptallica will kick off their first-ever tour tonight at North Gate Tavern. “I haven’t played in a bar before with people jumping around,” said Toman, who is a freelance harpist in Baton Rouge. Toman said the duo never planned on playing live until they started receiving requests. “I’d be interested in seeing them just to see how it sounds, see how they stack up to other metal bands,” said Melanie Miles, forensics junior. After deciding to go on tour, the duo expected to play in music halls and performing arts centers. Instead they were booked for bars and nightclubs. In June, Harptallica was one of three tribute bands to play at a Metallica convention called “Metallibash” in Long Beach, Calif. Toman and Kline will now perform up and down the East Coast through October. They will play songs from their self-titled album, which was released in November 2006. The album contains nine Metallica covers that the duo recorded during late nights in the recital hall at the Eastman School of Music. Both Toman and Kline received a masters of Music degree at the school in Rochester, N.Y., where they first met and decided to play together. Not always a metal fan, Toman said she first heard Metallica in a music theory class at Eastman. “I got into it through my husband,” she said. “He’s a big metal head.” The idea of playing Metallica covers on a harp suddenly occurred to her one day while driving. “I was listening to ‘Master of Puppets’ in the car, and I thought, ‘this would sound pretty sweet on harp,'” Toman said. Bach, Megadeth, Debussy, Black Sabbath, and Pantera are listed interchangeably on the band’s Myspace.com page. David Smyth, University music professor, said the art of covering music is about the desire to share. “The procedure of covering tunes is as old as music itself,” Smyth said. “It’s all music. The common denominator seems to be a desire to share, and to communicate through beautful, interesting sounds. Classical training is only one way to learn some things about this process.” Smyth said almost any type of music can be covered. “An able musician can appropriate just about anything they want if they have the skill and the desire,” he said.
—-Contact Laura Walck at [email protected]