Embers Record Store

Embers DC Dispensary is also a record store with a curated collection of hundreds of vinyl records. Our featured crate of the month, record of the week and High Fidelity playlists highlight the best in Hip Hop, Punk, Reggae, Soul, R&B and Jazz music.

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Record of the Week

Record of the Week - Minor Threat - First Two 7s

High Fidelity: Punk Vol. 1 Playlist

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The High Fidelity Punk Volume 1 Playlist

The first Punk playlist from our High Fidelity series follows the genre as it moves from one scene to the next, showing how it changed as it traveled and as new bands built on what came before. The selections draw from DC and NYC hardcore, early UK releases, and later records that carried the message forward. Bands like Bad Brains, Gorilla Biscuits, and Sick Of It All show how hardcore pushed the music faster and more focused, while Descendents, NOFX, The Bouncing Souls, Off With Their Heads, and Against Me! reflect how those ideas continued to evolve.

The playlist includes “In My Eyes” by Minor Threat, drawn from our Record of the Week: First Two Seven Inches—the compilation collecting the band’s first two EPs, both released in 1981 on Dischord Records. The songs were recorded while the band operated out of the Dischord House in Northwest DC, a shared living and rehearsal space that also served as the early base for the label. Minor Threat’s early work would go on to shape multiple chapters of DC punk in the decades that followed.

22 tracks from four decades of punk, mapping how scenes in DC, NYC, and the UK collided, overlapped, and pushed the sound forward.
— Built from the crates, not the algorithm.

 

  1. New Direction – Gorilla Biscuits
  2. Injustice System – Sick Of It All
  3. Attitude – Bad Brains
  4. In My Eyes – Minor Threat
  5. Suspect Device – Stiff Little Fingers
  6. One and the Same – Vision
  7. One To Two – Dag Nasty
  8. Young ’Til I Die – 7 Seconds
  9. Bikeage – Descendents
  10. Quest for Herb – Murphy’s Law
  11. Break-up Song – The Bouncing Souls
  12. Simple Song – Avail
  13. Teenage Kicks – The Undertones
  14. All This and More – Dead Boys
  15. Some Kinda Hate – Misfits
  16. Do You Wanna Dance? – Ramones
  17. Linoleum – NOFX
  18. Cool Kids – Screeching Weasel
  19. Debra Jean – The Queers
  20. Radio – Rancid
  21. Be Good – Off With Their Heads
  22. T.S.R. – Against Me!
  • Bad Brains – “Attitude” centers the band’s PMA ethos—“We got that PMA”—a phrase that became shorthand for Positive Mental Attitude across hardcore and remains part of the genre’s vocabulary.
  • Ramones / Rancid / Sick Of It All intersect live: the Ramones shared the stage with Rancid at their final show, passing the torch to a band heavily shaped by their sound. Rancid later paid respect to their peers by including live covers of Sick Of It All’s “My Life.”
  • Dag Nasty – “One To Two” connects directly back to Minor Threat through Brian Baker, a founding member of both bands. Both records in the crate were released on Dischord, linking DC hardcore across two generations.
  • The Undertones – “Teenage Kicks” gained its enduring status after BBC DJ John Peel repeatedly played the single on air. Peel later requested that “Teenage Kicks” be inscribed on his gravestone, underscoring its lasting impact.
  • Murphy’s Law – “Quest for Herb” reflects the crossover moment when New York hardcore regularly shared bills with bands outside strict genre lines, including opening slots for the Beastie Boys.

About Embers High Fidelity

High fidelity is the high-quality reproduction of sound—the closest you can get to music in its purest form. Music shapes how we see the world and acts as a filter for connection, identity, and shared experience. At Embers, we carry that same spirit forward: more than a place to buy cannabis, we’re a space where music, art, and storytelling come together.

High Fidelity, the 2000 film starring John Cusack, unfolds inside a record shop—Championship Vinyl a place that becomes much more than retail. Music drives the conversations, the culture, and the sense of identity. The soundtrack moves through classic rock, soul, punk, indie, and folk, capturing the feeling of records spinning behind the counter and the community that forms around them.

At Embers, we’ve brought Championship Vinyl to life. We’re the High Fidelity soundtrack made real rooted in Hip-Hop, Punk, Reggae, Soul, R&B, and Jazz, the sounds that shape our crates, guide our curation, and spark conversations throughout the shop. Alongside global influences, we highlight DC artists who speak directly to our community, making the space a reflection of the city as much as the music.
Crates, vinyl, and shared discovery become our way of opening doors, creating connection, and building a culture that lives beyond the speakers.

Cultivated Crate of the Month

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The February 2026 edition of The Cultivated Crate

This month’s selections span genres from hip-hop and soul to punk and jazz. We feature hit records like Run-D.M.C.’s *Raising Hell* and heavily sampled albums such as *Stand!* by Sly & The Family Stone. The tracklists represent pivotal moments in music history.

Our nation’s capital is well-represented through its musical diversity. The selections include jazz from Duke Ellington, the protopunk of Bad Brains’ *Rock for Light*, and the post-hardcore of Fugazi’s album, *The Argument*. These artists highlight Washington, D.C.’s significant, multi-genre impact.

From the soul of Aretha Franklin and The Staple Singers to the new wave of Blondie, this collection is built from classics. The Cultivated Crate for February 2026 is a cross-section of essential LPs, pulled directly from our shelves.

 

    1. Raising Hell — Run–D.M.C.

    2. Paul’s Boutique — Beastie Boys

    3. Stand! — Sly & The Family Stone

    4. Royal Rappin’s — Millie Jackson & Isaac Hayes

    5. The Stax Collection — The Staple Singers

    6. Aretha Now — Aretha Franklin

    7. Tapestry — Carole King

    8. The Stranger — Billy Joel

    9. Station to Station  — David Bowie

    10. Autoamerican — Blondie

    11. Ramones — Ramones

    12. The Argument — Fugazi

    13. Rock and Roll Over — KISS

    14. Come Hell or High Water — Deep Purple

    15. Rock for Light — Bad Brains

    16. Live in Moscow — UB40

    17. Legend — Bob Marley & The Wailers

    18. Words of Wisdom — Dennis Brown

    19. The Big Apple Bash — Jay McShann

    20. This One’s for Blanton — Duke Ellington & Ray Brown

    21. Coltrane — John Coltrane Quartet

    22. Caravan — Art Blakey
    • Run-D.M.C.’s 1986 album *Raising Hell* became the first platinum and multi-platinum rap album. Its crossover hit “Walk This Way” featured members of Aerosmith and was the first hip-hop song to break the top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100. 
    • Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique, produced by the Dust Brothers, was built from hundreds of densely layered samples, including Sly & The Family Stone’s “Loose Booty” and the Ramones’ “Suzy Is a Headbanger.” Released largely before widespread sample clearance, the album later became a reference point as tightening copyright law made this collage-style production economically unviable.
    • Sly & The Family Stone’s album *Stand!* contains the hit single “Everyday People” and the influential track “Sing a Simple Song,” which has been sampled by numerous artists including N.W.A. and Public Enemy. The track “I Want to Take You Higher” was famously performed at the band’s Woodstock set.
    • The Stax Collection brings together the essential Stax-era recordings by The Staple Singers, highlighted by their first No. 1 hit “I’ll Take You There”—a track built on a reggae-inflected groove lifted from “Liquidator” by The Harry J. All-Stars, a connection that remains little known—alongside the protest anthem “Respect Yourself.”
    • Aretha Now features Aretha Franklin’s hit cover of “I Say a Little Prayer,” originally recorded by Dionne Warwick. The album also includes “Think,” which Franklin co-wrote—a song that later gained a second life through its iconic performance scene in The Blues Brothers, cementing it as a pop-culture staple beyond its original release.
    • Blondie incorporated disco, funk, and reggae into their album Autoamerican. The record features two U.S. No. 1 hits: the reggae-styled “The Tide Is High,” a cover of the 1967 rocksteady original by The Paragons, and “Rapture,” which became one of the first songs with a rap vocal to top the U.S. charts.
    • “Hey! Ho! Let’s go!”—punk’s most enduring chant—Blitzkrieg Bop still echoes at concerts and sporting events alike. The song opens Ramones, released in April 1976 by the Ramones and widely regarded as one of the first true punk rock albums, recorded largely live in about one week at Plaza Sound Studios inside Radio City Music Hall for roughly $6,400.
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