A very busy vinyl collection, particularly 7"s, along with a robust cd section makes this worth…read moreyour while. Everything organized neatly. Good selection of blues and reggae but caters to all tastes. Worth the trip.

I am indebted to Kingbee…read more A few years ago, my brother asked me to deejay at a 30th birthday party for him and his mates. When he casually mentioned it was in 48 hours time and he didn't want me to play the 70s records I already had - Patti Smith, Television, New York no wave, etc - I began to panic. Since I was in Chorlton at the time, I went into Kingbee on the off chance they' might have a couple of records I could get. When I saw they had racks of 70s disco, pop and rock, I could have kissed the owner. Instead, I spent the next hour digging through the racks and checking out different tracks on their turntable. If it had been a Friday or Saturday, I would have had a long line of grumpy record collectors behind me, impatiently waiting to play their chosen records. As it was, I had the turntable to myself and left the shop with two bags stuffed with goodies. Amazingly, the whole lot only came to £30 and the guy offered to buy back any records I didn't want a few days later. What did I get? A couple of mint T-Rex, David Bowie and Roxy Music albums, compilations featuring Abba, The Bee Gees, Hot Chocolate and Sister Sledge and lots of excellent Blondie, Soft Cell, Sylvester, The Specials and Curtis Mayfield 7" and 12"s. Suffice to say, my brothers and his mates danced all night. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqJk0q4QvZk&feature=related

decent railway station shop, small but full of productsread more

Thackerey Music performed so, so wonderfully at my friend's wedding…read more Their choice of music was deeply moving and set the scene beautifully for what was a truly magical day. So many guests commented on the gorgeous, sensitive and highly appropriate music arrangements. As you'd imagine, it really made a huge difference to the day and was particularly lovely for the guests when the bride and groom were having their photographs taken. I cannot recommend Thackerey Music highly enough. '

Nice shop with friendly staff. Quite a large selection at reasonable prices too. Support these…read moresmall independent record shops because there arent many of them left these days.

Over time I feel Double Four transformed from being an exciting little indie record store, where…read moreyou'd discover all sorts of new music- especially in the 99p singles section, to being a slightly tatty second hand record store just selling forgettable mainstream 'nothing' music. The pretty out-of-the-way location at the top of Hillgate lent itself to the former rather than the latter and in the end it wasn't really sure what it was aiming for. If only it still sold Pop Will Eat Itself T-shirts and fairly rare KLF 12s. The other thing I'll remember from when I went to Double Four regularly was the dust. So much dust! Even the new stock was inexplicably covered in dust. I'd only recommend this shop if you are capable of time travel. (I've just realised this review makes it sound like the shop has closed down- it hasn't, it's still going.)

Although the front part of this former record shop is now the Art of Tea, the Didsbury Village…read moreBookshop still remains in the back room! It's a great little shop that's crowded with endless rows of bookcases, each holding a huge variety of secondhand and collectable titles, including lots of coveted vintage Penguin paperbacks! For some reason, the shop also does a great line in books about classic Hollywood icons. I've picked up everything from straightforward biographies of Clara Bow and Jean Harlow to a slightly odd biography of Jayne Mansfield written by her psychic here! The prices aren't cheap at around £2 6 per book. But there really are some great one-off titles here that you'd struggle to find elsewhere. The man who works here is very chatty and will happily recommend titles to you. His mind seems to function like a human stock control system, too. So he can usually tell you whether or not there's a particular book in stock, saving you hours of rifling through the shelves!

Fantastic second hand book store at the back of the Art of Tea. Literally crammed floor to ceiling…read morewith books of all descriptions and in the type of environment perfect for rummaging through old books, especially when you have a couple of hours spare. This shop is situated directly behind the Art of Tea as part of a four piece (alongside zero and the Picture framing service) avant garde nod to commercial shopping. The perfect one stop shop for your creative needs and caffeine addled brains. Have a good rummage through the countless number of books (thankfully listed by style and subject matter) then pop next door to grab a brew and purvey your literary acquisition. I found a bargain on a Stanley Kubrick hardback perfect condition and sold for a very good price considering it's quality. This part of Didsbury Village is slowly but surely re emerging from years in the wilderness and this type of book shop is exactly the type of thing Didsbury currently needs.