Sara Curtin

HOMETOWN: Washington, D.C.

AMBITIONS: I’d like learn to play the drums, play my songs to a room of a thousand people and one day I would love to have an enormous garden that could feed me all summer long.

TURN-OFFS: Arrogance & cigarettes.

TURN-ONS: 90′s R&B & a sense of humor.

DREAM GIG: It would be a dream to have an orchestra & choral society as my “backing band”. Carnegie Hall sounds like a great place for that to happen.

FAVORITE LYRIC: “I remember that time you told me, you said, ‘Love is touching souls.’ Surely you touched mine ’cause part of you pours out of me in these lines from time to time.” – Joni Mitchell (“A Case Of You”).

SONG I WISH I WROTE: “In My Life” by The Beatles.

5 PEOPLE I’D MOST LIKE TO HAVE DINNER WITH: Joni Mitchell, Janet Jackson, Michelle Obama, Jimmy Fallon and Graham Kerr (The Galloping Gourmet). He can cook the dinner and tell us jokes.

MY FAVORITE CONCERT EXPERIENCE: My favorite concert experience still has to be my first. I was 10 yrs old and went to see REM with my entire family. We were lucky enough to go backstage and meet bassist Mike Mills. He told us a story of when one time he was playing Kurt Cobain’s old guitar he felt a hand on his shoulder only to turn around and find no one there. When I got home, I wrote a letter to Mr. Mills thanking him for taking the time to talk to me. A few months later, I got a postcard in the mail – handwritten, from Mike Mills wishing me the best. Sure, I remember the feeling of being in the loud stadium and shouting along to “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It”, but what stuck with me from the whole experience was how the musicians were real, normal, nice people. They lived lives and wrote postcards like everyone else. (Oh, and “Leo-nard Bern-stein!”)

I WROTE THIS SONG BECAUSE… A bouquet of flowers, just beginning to wilt but still fragrant, sat taunting me on my kitchen table. The summer romance was over, but the artifacts still remained. Polaroid pictures, wrinkled clothes, wilting daisies. I started to imagine a museum of these artifacts where people could come and donate their broken hearts each weekend to be hung on the walls out in the open for others to view. I originally wrote this song on the ukulele, but then found more depth of arrangement in the electric guitar drowned in reverb. - American Songwriter

Sara Curtin, one half of the DC folk-pop duo The Sweater Set just released the single “Careless” from her forthcoming sophomore solo album Michigan Lilium, and AudioFemme is pleased to premiere it. Strummed like the folk star she is, the song both sounds pretty yet carries some seriously emotionally intelligent lyrics (“Boy I’m troubled, I should know). It’s smart yet delicious, like a kale smoothie as yummy as a milkshake. - AudioFemme

As one half of D.C. folk-pop duo The Sweater Set, Sara Curtin crafts often precious, always intricate tunes that rely on banjo, ukelele or accordion to carry the melody. But “Summer,” a song Curtin wrote as a solo artist, is a slow and sultry guitar-driven ballad that shares more with Sade or Sharon Van Etten than D.C.’s long folk tradition.

Not that “Summer” is Curtin’s first outing with an electric guitar—she plugged in on her debut solo EP, Fly Her and Keep Her—but the stylistic shift is remarkable. To craft the slow and steady rhythms in this song, she called in help from drummer Ian Chang (of Son Lux and Landlady) and bassist Spencer Zahn (of Empress Of), then threw tambourine and synthesized drum beats to the mix.

Curtin’s velvety croon is unmistakable, but she chose a different way to exercise that instrument on this song. “With singers on the radio constantly trying to sing higher and higher and out-belt each other, I decided to take it in the opposite direction,” the musician says. “It was kind of like, ‘Hey…how low can I sing?'”

Her foray into darker and deeper melodies seemed like an opportunity to explore a moody vibe in the song’s video: She teamed up with hip-hop fusion belly dancer Ebony Qualls (who also shows up in a new video from Nu:Tone) and shot the visual amid the shadows and bare walls of director Paul Abowd’s Columbia Heights apartment. The close-ups of both Curtin’s guitar and Qualls’ smooth movements recall the “Untitled” video from D’Angelo—whom Curtin also cites as an influence for this song.

“D’Angelo has a beautiful way of continuously building an arrangement without giving the listener that moment of complete satisfaction,” Curtin says. “That’s how I wanted to build this song.”

The only thing typically summery in the “Summer” music video are the sparklers that Qualls and Curtin hold. They’re shot in slow motion, suggesting a love that’s bright and exciting, but ultimately short-lived.

Sara Curtin performs Nov. 5 at “You, Me, Them, Everybody Live” at Wonderland Ballroom. - NPR WAMU Bandwidth

Now that it’s officially far from summer, it’s time to celebrate the season we just lost. One of D.C.’s finest Sara Curtin just released the song “Summer.” Here’s the video premier. - Brightest Young Things

Late last year, NPR Music announced an opportunity for unsigned bands to perform at the music industry's most hallowed cubicle: Bob Boilen's Tiny Desk. With a YouTube account, an original song, and a desk of any variety, a heretofore unknown music act could end up on the same patch of carpet once graced by T-Pain, the Dismemberment Plan, Angel Olsen, and dozens of other musicians with deep cred.

The Tiny Desk Contest submission period ended last night, but the winner (who'll also nab a spot at a Lagunitas-sponsored music showcase in Austin) won't be announced until February 12. We're holding out for a D.C. champion. Here are a few local bands' entries worth watching.

The El Mansouris' dreamy, emotive "Walden," which goes heavy on light percussion.
Sara Curtin's finger-picked ballad "Careless," filmed at GoodWood.
Stranger in the Alps' delicate, deliberate "Black Box".
Humble Fire's acoustic version of "Northern Lights," which pairs frantic banjo with pointed vocals from Nefra Faltas. - Washington City Paper

I’m using both the terms “D.C.” and “bands” loosely when I say that 130 D.C. bands submitted videos to NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert contest.

NPR received more than 5,000 eligible submissions to the national competition, which gives musicians a shot at performing a live concert at the radio network’s headquarters in D.C. But fewer than 60 submissions came from inside D.C.’s borders.

NPR’s data shows that more than half of entrants from this region identified as Marylanders or Virginians, many of them far outside the beltway in places like Bluemont and Clarksburg. And if you watch all 130 local submissions like I did, you’ll find that many went the coffee-shop route: a solo performance, usually involving an acoustic guitar and a tender song.

But those who took another path made a big impression. That’s why — if you asked me to judge a regional Tiny Desk competition — I’d hand the prize to D.C. hip-hop artist Kokayi.

The established producer, vocalist and rapper from Deanwood has been nominated for a Grammy. He was a member of ’90s-’00s hip-hop ensemble Opus Akoben, who had a short stint on a major label. He’s prolific — last year he challenged himself to release a new track every day — and he’s taken hip-hop to Senegal with the grant-funded DC2DK project. So it’s no surprise that Kokayi brought his A game to his Tiny Desk submission.

On a song called “The Lick,” Kokayi sings, speed-rhymes, plays the keys, chair-dances and punctuates his verses with goofy faces. NPR’s official Tiny Desk Contest rules say that stage presence and charisma make up 20 percent of the judges’ criteria. Kokayi nailed that category, all while sitting down.

As for the rest of the field, I’m finding it tough to pick a clear runner-up, so how about I just name a bunch? D.C.’s M.H. & His Orchestra, Stranger in the Alps and Virginia’s The Plank Stompers turned in dynamic performances — and brand-new local band The El-Mansouris made a strong impression for a group that hasn’t even played its first show yet (see their debut Feb. 26 at Transformer).

I also enjoyed the videos from Reston’s Space Waste (they start the song by chanting “Yoko! Ono!”), Takoma Park guitarist Angie Head, Silver Spring smooth-pop trio The Walking Sticks and D.C.’s Be Steadwell, Sara Curtin, The Sea Life, Boon and The Highballers. - NPR WAMU Bandwidth