About

Andrew Howard

Andrew Howard has always been good with words; he enjoyed poetry assignments in school and loved opportunities to speak or perform onstage. Throughout high school and his early years of college, Andrew was involved in sports, primarily track and cross country. After his freshman year of college he finally pursued a long-dormant desire: learning a musical instrument. Andrew picked up the guitar, and soon after he began writing songs.

As a self-taught singer/songwriter/guitarist, Andrew began playing solo gigs in the Central Texas area in 2003, especially in San Marcos, Kyle and in his native San Antonio. In San Antonio he formed his first real band: Rockus Circus. The band released one album under this name in 2007, and eventually morphed into The StandOuts. The StandOuts were a tight group, and in spring of 2010 were called by Texas Music Magazine "The catchiest pop-rock act to come out of Texas since Austin's Fastball." Unfortunately, the band dissolved in December 2010.

In late 2009 Andrew met musician and web developer Josh Richards and they started AndrewHowardMusic.com as a side project for Andrew to present his back catalog and songs that were stylistically different from The StandOuts. After the dissolution of The StandOuts, Andrew took a hiatus from posting to the website (though he and Josh still recorded several songs in 2011) and played in a band for fun in San Antonio called Radner, with his cousin and a friend.

Now band-less by choice and relocated to Austin, Andrew concentrates his artistic efforts back on his solo-acoustic repertoire for live shows and recording songs with Josh for posting to AndrewHowardMusic.com.

This site presents "select" songs from the catalog of Andrew Howard, with co-production, "select" creative input, and additional musicianship by Josh Richards. Should we choose within this project we may also use a vast array of "select" musicians, ultimately leading us to the sound of.... "Andrew Howard & The Selections!"

Josh Richards

Josh Richards is a California native and experienced musician turned web-application developer, database architect, devoted family man, and independent music producer. After a five year stint in New York, Josh and his family relocated to Texas, where he was introduced to Andrew by Andrew's mother (December 2009). The two musicians decided to just get together, hang out, and jam. They immediately hit it off personally and musically, and within two or three jam sessions they realized they were onto something very fun and productive -- not to mention they like the same beer. Josh had been yearning for something to seriously produce, and Andrew had been hoping for someone to help him record his solo work. They got what they were looking for, and the product is the music you hear on this site, as well as the site itself. Enjoy!

Philosophy

With the advent of the internet and person-to-person file sharing came sweeping changes to the music industry. The way people experience music has also changed in recent years, as things like handheld digital devices and video game soundtracks have replaced CDs and long radio broadcasts. For an artist there are both pros and cons to the changes within the realm of music.

But the primary goal of the artist is simple and still the same: to be heard. And we want you to hear us. We understand you could search for a bit torrent supplying Andrew Howard's songs, or ask your friend to burn you a disc with the songs on it. And then you would have the copyright protected material from "Andrew Howard & The Selections" for free. But we don't want you to go to any trouble to get these quality songs for free. We want you to get it straight from the horse's mouth in ultra high resolution, first generation, 320 kbps .mp3 files. That is why we offer all songs on this website for 100% free download. And we hope that as soon as you download any of the songs you email them to at least five of your friends and burn a CD for your grandma and two for your boss!

Donate

I know what you're thinking right now. You're thinking, "Wow! Andrew Howard and Josh Richards are two super-cool guys! They're giving away all this great music!" And let me respond by confimring: yes, we are indeed super-cool, and yes, the music is indeed great. Let me also say that we are human and we like money. If you enjoy what you hear and are anxious to contribute to the cause of good music, then take advantage of our "donate" feature. The money goes straight into our PayPal account. You give us what money you see fit, or simply take it for free. Might we suggest: if you're going to give, give 'til it hurts!