OVER THE EDGE BY JOHN RUSSELL PHOTOGRAPHY BY LIZ LIGOURI The Jackie Factory sets the room on fire with rock ’n’ roll raucousness and Stevie Nicks realness at their 17th annual Night of a Thousand Stevies.

Madonna makes sense, Cher collects a crowd and Bowie is a no-brainer, but Stevie Nicks as a queer icon? You bet! In the hot-today-tired-tomorrow atmosphere of New York clubland, Night of a Thousand Stevies, now in its 17th year (a veritable eternity for a party), continues to be one of the year’s most vibrant nightlife events with fans pouring in from around the country. Todd Stephen’s earlier film Gypsy 83 (before Another Gay Movie) even chronicled misfit fans from Ohio traveling to the event. As a member of Fleetwood Mac and later solo, Nicks wasn’t called the “High Priestess of Rock ’n’ Roll” by Rolling Stone for nothing!

Born as just one of many themed nights at Jackie 60, Chi Chi Valenti and husband DJ Johnny Dynell’s Tuesday night party at the legendary nightspot Mother, the two co- founded the event during what you might call Stevie’s lean years. (And no, we’re not talking about her weight.)

“She was so out at that time,” says Valenti. “She was so far from anyone’s periphery…except the people who just really loved her.”

Valenti got the idea for a Stevie drag night from seeing Nicks on tour in the late ’80s and running into performers like Dean Johnson and Joey Arias at the shows. “I realized that all these really cool, genius drag performers worshipped her!”

From there the party ballooned, attracting celebrities such as Courtney Love, Cyndi Lauper, John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin—even Madonna in ’96—fans from all over the country, as well as some of the fiercest drag queens ever to stamp around a stage in six inch platform boots. That heady mix of fans—Fleetwood frat boys, Stevie lovin’ soccer moms, enchanted trannies, radical faeries—and celebs has made for some memorable moments, like Boy George’s reggae rendition of “Go Your Own Way,” and the time “Page Six” reported that the bathroom lines at Mother were so long that Debbie Harry popped a squat in the hallway and peed right on a Stevie poster.

“There was a year or two that it got…a little too Stevie,” says Dynell. “It was like a little too much of the real Stevie fans being so true to the Stevie image. And we were like, OK, we have to take it back again and make it New York again.”

“Because it is a New York event and that’s really important,” adds Valenti. “There’s always this thing that we try to avoid, which is making it like a karaoke show.”

To that end, Valenti and Dynell book some of downtown’s most dynamic and unexpected performers, setting the stage for way left-field shows like Dirty Martini’s Stevie ballet, Velocity Chyaldd’s striptease to Nicks’s cover of “At Last,” and Cathy Cervenka and Jill Pangallo of the Ho-Hos’ elaborate stage productions—some of which aren’t exactly flattering.

“I think that’s what sets us apart from other fan tribute events,” Valenti says. “We love her and we love the messy moments just as much as the for-publication moments.”

“I think people who come to NOTS expect more,” says Dynell. “They expect performance art as opposed to just somebody lip-synching.”

Although there have never actually been 1,000 Nicks impersonators onstage at once (“I don’t think that’d be possible!” laughs Valenti), this year’s “Edge of Seventeen” anniversary party is taking place in the Maritime Hotel’s super-plush (nay, enchanted) Hiro Ballroom, so at least they’ll all be in same room with no separate dance floor as previous parties have provided. But with performers like Justin Bond, Sherry Vine, Dean Johnson, Sweetie, and the Empress Chi Chi herself, as well as longtime NOTS DJs Poison Eve and Craig Spencer, and a Greek Chorus of Stevie go-gos, where the hell else would you want to be?

As for the future, Valenti says she can’t imagine doing NOTS forever. “I know we’re here for 17. If I had to guess, I would say maybe we’d stop at 20. But I’m just throwing that number out there. Nothing’s been discussed. I think there’ll be an omen and we’ll know it’s time to stop.”

Until then, rock on Gold Dust Woman, and we’ll keep ringin’ like a bell through the night.