the songwriter's songwriter

"Let me introduce the unbelievable unknown..."

David Stuart Howard (born June 22, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist who has been active in the San Diego music scene since 1990.
Howard was born in Philadelphia in 1963 and lived in New Jersey for the first few years of his life before moving with his single mom to Brooklyn, New York. There he started taking guitar lessons at age 7 and studied classical guitar and popular music accompaniment, learning to play while singing along to sheet music.

David was exposed to music starting in his toddler years, listening to Beatles singles, The Who's Tommy, and the cream of 1960s folk, rock, and show tunes that were shared by his older brother and his parents. As an adolescent in Brooklyn, New York during the 70s, Dave was exposed to soul music and jazz as well ethnic music like Puerto Rican salsa, reggae and afro-latin rhythms. Going to summer camp in New York's Catskill Mountains exposed him to older counselors who were into the Grateful Dead, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd, Yes and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. In the fall of 1977, Dave entered Edward R. Murrow High School and joined up with a whole new group of friends. Punk was oozing out of the brownstones and weekend visits to Greenwich Village introduced him to the Ramones, Heartbreakers, Patti Smith, Television, Talking Heads and Richard Hell and the Voidoids.

So, Howard had a deep and wide musical palette by the time he moved to Escondido, California in 1980. John Lennon's murder left a deep hole and Dave started writing songs in bulk, inspired and fueled by the sophomore releases of Elvis Costello, The Police, Joe Jackson and U2. The late 1980s found Dave struggling with personal, financial and addiction issues. Life became as simple as a backpack, a guitar and the change in his pocket. He ended up one day at the Metaphor Cafe in Escondido, California. The coffeeshop was right in the center of town and its offbeat, funky decor and quirky owner, Jim Nemish drew in local business people by day and young poets, mods and performers by night who took advantage of the four open mic nights per week; one each for folk/bluegrass, blues and poetry and all styles on Sunday. David picked up a full-time job and started performing and running the open mic nights, hosting and running sound, slinging coffee and mopping the floors. This is where he met and formed bonds with his peers in the emerging acoustic scene which launched the careers of Gregory Page, Jewel, Steve Poltz and Jason Mraz. Howard took any gig he could get and started a series of songwriting collaborations with other artists and built his reputation as a prolific and accomplished singer, guitarist and writer.

In the 1990s, with no money and no representation, Howard leveraged his communications skills and recorded his own cassettes and duplicated them himself, selling them or giving them away at open mikes and showcases. He made his own gig cards, created mailing lists (pre-email) and encouraged performers he met to cover his songs. In 1992, Dave recorded more than 35 songs at John Katchur's home studio onto Digital Audio Tape (DAT). The cream of this output was released on two cassettes; Unfinished Houses and Outside The Asylum. Katchur later archived the recordings onto a 3-CD set called "Dave On DAT." Howard released two studio albums on CD, Unbelievable Unknown in 2000 and Into The Wind in 2004. Both records were nominated for San Diego Music Awards in the Best Folk or Acoustic category.

Howard's acoustic catalog is augmented by his forays into garage rock (The Shamey Jays) and ambient electronic music (Upaya). His unique blend of pop, rock, and folk influences has earned him a cult following in San Diego since the mid-1990s, with collaborations and covers of his songs by more popular artists like Berkley Hart, A.J. Croce, and Gregory Page. Despite avoiding the grind of touring, Howard has garnered accolades from artists and songwriters across the U.S. The release of "Pieces Of Me: 2000-2018" on May 1, 2024 is an exciting opportunity for fans to enjoy the best of Howard's work from the past two decades.