NY Daily News article

[Livia]

New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
Stevie Nicks off the old block
By BRITTANY SCHAEFFER
DAILY NEWS FEATURE WRITER
Tuesday, June 7th, 2005

Perched atop patent-leather platform boots and wrapped in a gold-threaded shawl, Cathy Cervenka tugs her curly blond wig down over her eyes.

"Perfect � just like Stevie," she says to the mirror.

Swiveling on 4-inch heels, Cervenka stomps and twirls to the voice of Stevie Nicks singing "Edge of Seventeen."

"There's something so special about Stevie," says Cervenka breathlessly. "Nobody else in rock 'n' roll has a style like hers."

Indeed, three decades since she fronted Fleetwood Mac, Nicks maintains a massive cult following.

Nicks and her former fling, the Eagles' Don Henley, play Friday at Jones Beach, but her uber-fans warmed up last month at the 15th annual Night of a Thousand Stevies � an all-night party celebrating Nicks' music and her taste for leg warmers, hippie shawls and "tamboquets." (That's a tambourine adorned with flowers and fabric.) Nearly 30 acts at the Knitting Factory copped her songs, her dance moves and, especially, her clothes.

Cervenka's group, the HoHos � which also includes Jill Pangallo and a trio of male dancers � has been playing the Thousand Stevies event since 1992. For its devotion to the cause, the group was assigned the night's much-coveted theme song: "Gold Dust Woman," Nicks' fairy-tale tune about love � and also possibly her decade-long cocaine addiction.

In a short video introduction/send-up, Cervenka plays Nicks, ostensibly snorting coke and refusing to come out of her dressing room, while Pangallo and the dancers act as members of Fleetwood Mac who try to coax her onstage. "Stevie's songs are famously hard to understand," says Cervenka. "So we stretch the story to fit our own vision of it."

As the video screen lifted, Cervenka and Pangallo appeared dressed as Stevie while dancers Wilson Chan, Mike Albo and Wilder Selzer interpreted the lyrics.

"Rock on � gold dust woman ... Take your silver spoon ... And dig your grave."

Cervenka belted out the song, while Pangallo screeched backup vocals intermittently, playing a hysterically strung-out Stevie. "We are comedic," says Cervenka. "But it's lovingly that you make fun of her."

Other performances ranged from soloist cross-dressers lip-synching to acts by such serious rock royalty as Debbie Harry of Blondie.

But the devotion for some goes beyond parody. Days after Thousand Stevies, Cervenka and Pangallo jetted to Las Vegas to see the real Stevie Nicks' performance in Celine Dion's mega-theater.

"We got Stevie-fever, and we decided that we had to go to Vegas," says Cervenka. "It's not even like I'm spending money � it's more like destiny calling."


I love the last paragraph! Way to make a juicy rationalization! BTW, did anyone catch her act at NOTS this year?