#SessionsatSOM Continues, Dave Hoffpauir Curates May Shows

Dave Hoffpauir is curating the upcoming month of the Sessions at South on Main concert series. Each month South on Main turns the concert series over to a new person to curate the shows for that month.

Growing up in Shreveport, Hoffpauir started on piano before switching to drums when he realized he “was more into writing tunes than playing Mozart.”

Though his parents had more than one fight about buying him his first real drum set, they eventually gave in. At the time, the drinking age was eighteen, and at sixteen, they allowed him to play gigs in bars so long as he promised not to partake (wink, wink). “My mom started noticing these large amounts of cash on my dresser,” he said. “So the second set of drums, she was all [for that].”

Through his mother, Hoffpauir met brothers Lenny and Rod Bryan, and upon hearing their demo tape (yes, actual tape), decided to join their band. He moved with them to Little Rock, and the resulting outfit became Ho-Hum, the mostly famous alt-rockers we all know and love that were a hit in Little Rock in the ‘90s. Many bands (the Boondogs), many years, and even more gigs later, he has settled in as professor at UALR, teaching graduate and undergraduate social work. But a good drummer is hard to find, so he is never too far from his skins.

The lineup for May’s sessions is full of impressive homegrown talent. “I’ve been working [to give new folks exposure],” Hoffpauir said. The varied sampling of genres is probably just a snapshot of his personal record collection, so take a look at the list, there’s something for everyone:

May 4—Lagniappe—Named for his mother’s Louisiana high school yearbook, Lagniappe aspired to be a New Orleans party band akin to Doctor John but settled somewhere between the Neville Brothers and the Staples Singers. Fronted by Genine LaTrice Perez, who Hoffpauir met at the water cooler at UALR, the group brings its unique combination of influences to the South on Main stage for the first time. “Genine [could] sing the telephone book and [it would] be worth listening to,” Hoffpauir says.

May 11—Good Foot—Another outfit guided by the steady hand of Hoffpauir, Good Foot are a jazz rock band that doesn’t hesitate to bring the funk. Hoffpauir met front man Brian Oman while attending graduate school and the two have stayed friends ever since. The band is heavily influenced by the laid back sounds of Philadelphia blues rocker G. Love.

May 18—Kevin Gordon—Gordon plays with a perfect blend of roots rock and Louisiana blues and has a killer band, to boot (bass player Ron Eoff even toured with Americana legends The Band during the mid-eighties). According to Hoffpauir, “Gordon is a prolific writer [that’s] been writing songs for thirty years. He’s definitely into the same kind of roots music that we all grew up with. Serious, serious, serious music.”

May 25—Whiskey Shivers—You could call them bluegrass but that wouldn’t do them justice. This Austin-based band mixes equal parts of the ramshackle energy found in “A.M.”-era Wilco, the camaraderie shared by the likes of Old Crow Medicine Show, and the lyrical hoops that John Darnielle jumps through, all played in a flooding basement in the middle of the Mississippi Delta with a fiddle, an acoustic guitar, and a standup bass, with spare, mostly found, percussion.

Be sure to mark your calendar every Wednesday for 8:30 p.m. at South on Main, as you won’t want to miss a single show this month.

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