Dirk Gieselmann is 14 years old when Pearl Jam blows him away with their sound. Inspired by the daredevil middle-school god Bernd, known as Bernd Cobain, Gieselmann bought the album “Ten”. His first very own CD. Now he’s sitting in front of his sister’s sacred stereo, listening to the opening bars of “Once” – the rousing guitars, Eddie Vedder’s otherworldly voice – sensing immediately that this, this is going to change everything.
The rage, pain and fury of grunge shake up the hitherto reserved boy, making him rebel, changing his view of what just a moment ago was his world and now suddenly seems narrow and stuffy. The quiet Dirki turns into the impudent Stone Gieselmann refusing to wear anything but tattered cords, he becomes the “family disgrace,” breaking his grandmother’s heart. He experiments, gets lost, consumes, loses – and finds. In this nimbly humorous and touchingly wistful text, Dirk Gieselmann looks back at his own youth and the riotous power of grunge and the inescapable pull of Pearl Jam’s sound.
