Sunday, August 9, 2009

Who is Paige Railstone?

There are multiple conflicting opinions and facts regarding Miss Railstone. This is to be expected. Since she refuses to do interviews and somehow manages to draw crowds with little to no preceding formal publicity, it's very difficult to pin down where and when she's been in the world throughout her career. Records are undependable. I've found multiple occasions when she's allegedly performed in two or more places at once, in different countries. Those who have met her personally would not describe her as business-minded. Her brother operates as her business partner and keeps her on the go. She's more artistic-minded and very vague in answers to even the simplest of questions. "Ask if she wants some coffee. I dare you," one club employee was overheard recently, in reference to Miss Railstone. "I asked for her autograph once," a fan told me recently. "She said to me 'The Buddha's footprint would have more value to us both, and I'm not even Buddhist. Are you?' Then she kissed me on the cheek and left. I didn't wash my face for a week." She and her brother have no formal base of operations. Multiple addresses and PO Boxes have been attributed to them but Joey said recently to the press they "don't get snail mail." Their business is fluid and constantly adapting to their own needs. Some eyewitnesses have reported she only shows up at a gig with a laptop and some homemade DVDs in her backpack and somehow manages to pull off shows that range from ninety minutes to nine hours. One report said all she had on her that night was a cellphone and a bluetooth, but that may have been a Tall Tale. She often borrows equipment that's at the gig or that the region's local DJs bring to her. This means she travels light. She rarely appears early at gigs and rarely stays for autographs. Some find her behavior eccentric. Some find her weird. Some find her quietly reclusive and others find her extravagantly bawdy. Some say she's straight-edge (no foreign chemicals), and others have witnessed her with a Venti Cafe Mocha from the local Starbucks, or chugging RedBulls and vodka to get her through a set. She's definitely an enigma, and because of her transient and cryptic behavior, Miss Railstone appears to be whomever or whatever the person experiencing her wants her to be.