We know you like cute animals, and we know you love tunes like Clean The House, Shiverman, and Midnight Marauders, so what could be better than an evening which combines the two?

Two North American comedy stars are making their way to Auckland next year. Canadian Russell Peters is returning to New Zealand after his sold-out 2013 show.

A number of international acts have also announced 2015 shows this week. Veteran Californian rockers Counting Crows are heading our way on Tuesday, April 14 for a performance at the Civic Theatre in Auckland.

Musos on their favourite Stones songs and memories.

As Dave Dobbyn stood at the entrance to the Pike River mine, through which lie the bodies of the 29 men who lost their lives four years ago, he covered his mouth and for a few seconds looked overwhelmed.

Senior Herald writers remember seeing the 1973 show at Western Springs.

Keith Richards talks about being a grandad, writing books, and that day job of his with Russell Baillie.

Graham Reid looks back at how the Rolling Stones introduced him to the adult world.

This film's director had a hand in 2007's The White Planet, a visually sublime documentary about the Arctic that was burdened with a teeth-grindingly banal commentary.

Hayden Donnell catches up with Assassin's Creed Unity director, Alexandre Amancio.

At least Assassin's Creed: Unity looks beautiful. The fifth instalment of the history-spanning series renders revolutionary Paris in intricate detail.

It's tv3's silver anniversary this month. Though having gone through two receiverships in its short life, there may well be a distinct lack of silver.

The Hunger Games star Josh Hutcherson has wanted to act since the age of 4, but fame hasn't changed his down-to-earth nature, writes Kaleem Aftab.

Supergroove is being honoured with the New Zealand Herald Legacy Award tonight and inducted into the NZ Music Hall of Fame. Here, the members of the band - now reunited for a summer tour- talk about the madness of their 90s teen heyday to Russell Baillie.

Award-winning rapper Randa's star is rising - personally and professionally, finds Lydia Jenkin.

Should a long-haired young woman wander past you at tonight's Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards pushing a wheelbarrow, do not be alarmed.

Pop siblings Broods are set to show New Zealand what they're all about.

The Dadrock season is already upon us with everybody from Pink Floyd to Bob Dylan flogging off their odds and ends.

Signs of impending summer: suddenly free-to-air early evening primetime is awash with Aussie reality shows which finished weeks or months ago across the Tasman.

Twice garlanded with Cannes' Palme d'Or, the Belgian brothers who are Europe's modern masters of naturalism lost this year to Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Winter Sleep.

Director Ken Loach, now 78, announced during the making of this modest but moving historical drama that it would be his last film, though there have been later suggestions of a change of heart.

Time has taken tragically little toll on David Hare's 1995 play. The pungent one-liners amuse, but the real sting is that references to inequality and the erosion of social conscience have become more pointed.

In Slipknot's sick world, death isn't an ending - it's a reason to celebrate. It's been six years since the Iowa act's last album, something the band blames on the loss of two key members: bassist Paul Gray.

Neil Young only occasionally reveals his private life, but in July he filed for divorce from his wife of 36 years, Pegi, and is now with actress Daryl Hannah.

Adam Mcgrath has one of those voices that sums up the struggles of the everyman in one line. Gentle, husky, weary, righteous.

With their awkward song structures, sludgy production and multilayered harmonies, TV on the Radio have always been the oddest barflies at Brooklyn's alt-rock bar.

Nearly 10 years after television cameras followed him to Matata where he played for victims for the 2005 eastern Bay of Plenty flood, Dave Dobbyn has been back on musical counselling duties.

Before he's seen in next year's film adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey, Jamie Dornan returns to his breakthrough role as the murderer in television drama The Fall. It's a part that has transformed his life but left him scarred, he tells Gerard Gilbert.