We’ve had some #longreads pile up over the week, so it’s a good thing the weekend is here.

Tomorrow is unfortunately a morbid twentieth anniversary, so there were plenty of Nirvana stories that were printed this week, with more certainly to follow.  Diffuser talked to a few musicians about how Nirvana personally influenced them and SPIN reprinted several memorials from legendary musicians in a slideshow.  Stereogum has a top ten list that inspires moderate eye-rolls (a real fake bold move by not including “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, and a real dumb move for not including “Sappy”, though a high ranking for “Serve the Servants” deserves a mild tip of the hat).  You can compare that list with Billboard’s ranking of their ten biggest hits on the alternative charts, which includes a couple of surprises.  And the list of presenters for the upcoming Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony was announced, which includes Michael Stipe being chosen to introduce Nirvana.

Speaking of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Rolling Stone interviewed the Hall of Fame CEO and got an inside look at some of the proceedings.  One tidbit I gathered from the piece is that there will be a Nirvana performance of some sort, though how it will actually shape out has not been revealed.

And continuing with the Nirvana theme, the AV Club gave another album a write-up in their “Permanent Records” feature, making the case that Dookie made Green Day the spiritual successor to Nirvana and I guess that grunge gave way to pop-punk?  We mentioned before that there’s going to be a lot of pieces this year about Dookie because of its 20th anniversary, but the most I can say about this piece is…it’s an article that exists.

A far better piece about the anniversary of a seminal album is Stereogum’s reflection on the ten year anniversary of Modest Mouse’s Good News For People Who Love Bad News.  We’ll do our own pieces in the future around the time Modest Mouse begins touring again at the beginning of May, but here’s a quick comment: the album is better than what old MM fans remember.

The Canadian Edition of the Huffington Post has an interview with Tokyo Police Club about the making of their new album Forcefield.  We’re debating whether or not to recommend the album and then run a review of it, but their earlier work is definitely worth checking out.  The band reveals what went on during the years since the release of Champ, and thank God they decided to go against someone’s advice to throw in some banjo.

Finally, we haven’t had the chance to show how much we love the finest heavy metal rockers from our neck of the woods, but let it be known that we are big fans of Red Fang here at RIJR.  Aaron Beam, the bassist and one of the vocalists of the band, did an interview with Songfacts that goes deep into the songwriting process of the band.  It’s amazing how so many of their songs are Frankenstein-like creations, stitched together from bits and pieces over the years, but you wouldn’t realize it just from listening because the sections fit so well.  And with the news that we discussed on our Tumblr about the retirement of David Letterman, this is the perfect time to share the video of their performance on the Late Show, with Paul Shaffer loving the song so much that he joins in on the keys.