Dana Forr star
and Eric
Koltonor
"DetroitE
ready to'
this.''
ocher
Dana Forrester and Erica Koltonow
performers and fans in five-day Motor
bring together music professionals, City
Music Conference.
LYNNE KONSTANTIN
Special to the Jewish News
W
e're Jewish chicks who
rock," says Erica Koltonow.
Along with Dana Forrester,
the business partners and best pals
are intent on spreading their infec-
tious groove through all of Metro
Detroit — and by all accounts, they
will succeed brilliantly. The pair are
the co-founders of the much-hyped
and internationally anticipated
Motor City Music
Conference (MC2), set to
present its maiden run April
20-24 in venues scattered
throughout Detroit.
Modeled after Austin's
influential South by
Southwest (SXSW) and New
York City's CMJ music festivals,
MC2 will encompass five days of
panels with industry professionals,
music and lifestyle trade shows and a
whole lot of music — more than 450
local and national artists performing
at more than 50 venues — all geared
toward attendees ranging from those
trying to break into the biz to sea-
soned musicians to plain-old fans.
However, what will differentiate
MC2 from other conferences,
explains Koltonow, is that it will cap-
ture, and liberate, all of the musical
genres that make the Detroit scene
unique, including hip-hop, techno
and electronica, R&B, gospel and, of
course, rock in all its glorious mani-
festations. "We're incorporating
everything that is Detroit," she says.
"It's about reflecting Detroit's
musical history," adds Forrester.
"What's special about the music that
comes out of Detroit is that it is
authentic, and people recognize that.
We've got that blue-collar gritty-city
aspect, and the Detroit sounds have
always been full of soul and spirit,
from pre-Motown blues to today.
And now more than ever, people are
looking for music that's real, that's
not manufactured Britney Spears."
(For more on this point, check out
MC2's panel "Detroit Music: What's
in the Water?" moderated by the
MC5's Dennis Thompson.)
Getting Started
So what do these two 30-
something Jewish chicks,
albeit ones who rock, know
about not only pulling off an
event of this stature, but also
providing a much-deserved
platform for a monumental
influence in the landscape of musical
history? Plenty.
Growing up in Birmingham, Dana
Forrester, nee Mendelssohn, began
headlining shows at venues around
Detroit such as St. Andrew's Hall and
Lili's when she was just a 16-year-old
high-school student. As bassist for the
Vertical Pillows, an all-girl, in-your-
face rock band that achieved some
national acclaim in the '80s under the
mentorship of the MC5's Rob Tyner,
she gained entree with credibility to
the underbelly of Detroit's music
scene that had produced such names
as the MC5 and Iggy Pop and the
Stooges.
After graduating from the University
of Michigan, she set off for a
work/study program in Jamaica, where
she helped found and run a Montessori
school, married a Jamaican Rastaman
and was a herder of 45 goats.
"Not a highly profitable business,"
she muses. "We owned the goats but
not the land, so if a goat ate a neigh-
C OVER
STO RY