DENVER (KDVR) – Colorado is no stranger to producing big-name musical acts.
But with Centennial State groups like OneRepublic, Big Gigantic, the Lumineers, Flobots and many other outfits all breaking onto the national stage in recent years, there is plenty of room on the local level for younger up-and-coming acts to walk the pre-blazed trail meandering through the Coloradan music scene.
Here are a few artists to consider sampling that have called Colorado home and are now making waves on streaming services like Spotify.
Velveteers
47,824 monthly listeners on Spotify
This Boulder-based trio consisting of Demi Demitro, Baby Pottersmith and Jonny Fig started gathering a following with their doubletrack drum sound and their adoption of rock and roll principles that they refer to as “the riff, the rhythm, the snarl.”
Over the last few years, they’ve made enough noise to catch the ear of the Black Keys’ guitarist, Dan Auerbach, who invited them to Nashville to record their inaugural album, “Nightmare Daydream,” in his studio.
Their next Colorado performance will be on Aug. 27 at the Snowmass Rendezvous.
Dragondeer
30,587 monthly listeners on Spotify
The band from Denver that Live for Live Music called “reminiscent of early Led Zeppelin” consists of four good friends all striving to put out a fusion of retro funk, trippy blues and soulful rock and roll, according to the band’s online bio.
Marcus King, Shakey Graves, Denver’s own Nathaniel Rateliff and other bluesy headliners have all shared the stage with Dragondeer. The band’s first album, “If you Got the Blues,” remains its sole release.
The band is due for a show in Denver on Sept. 9. Details on the location have yet to be released.
Wildermiss
27,987 monthly listeners on Spotify
The three-piece indie outfit consisting of synth-playing lead singer Emma Cole, guitarist Joshua Hester and drummer Caleb Thoemke, gathered a fanbase leading up to and following their 2019 album release, “In My Mind.”
The band followed that release with a rooftop performance in 2020 on top of the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver as part of the 2020 Indie 102.3 B-Side Music Fridays series.
The Denver-based band now lives in Nashville and doesn’t have any upcoming Colorado shows scheduled. However, with the trio carrying a perfect record when it comes to selling out their hometown shows since 2017, according to their homepage bio, it’s almost a certainty that a Centennial State date will be added soon.
Slow Caves
4,888 monthly listeners on Spotify
Brothers Jakob and Oliver Mueller, along with their childhood friend David Dugan, formed this indie threesome in Fort Collins in 2014 before testing their mettle in the Denver music scene until 2017.
2019’s “Falling,” highlighted by a meandering, wavy undercurrent, remains their only LP release to date. it was produced in Austin under the tutelage of Chris “Frenchie” Smith, who in the past produced albums for Jet, the Toadies and Lost Bayou Ramblers, to name a few. Slow Caves has performed alongside genre-sharing bands like Cake, Rooney and Modest Mouse.
Currently, they are not on tour but the occasional advertisement for a one-off show pops up on the band’s social media accounts.
The Yawpers
37,401 monthly listeners on Spotify
The blues-focused band, which took its name from a Walt Whitman poem, formed in Boulder in 2011 when founding members Nate Cook and Jesse Parmethas added drummer Adam Perry. Perry left shortly thereafter in 2012 and was replaced with Noah Shomberg.
Described by Pitchfork as “the sheep in wolf’s clothing,” the Yawpers have four studio albums, including 2019’s “Human Question.”
The band has two upcoming shows in Denver on Sept. 17 and 18 at the HQ on South Broadway.
Brent Cowles
49,264 monthly listeners on Spotify
The man who moved into his truck and relocated to Denver from Colorado Springs developed his voice while singing hymns at his father’s church growing up. Today, you can hear that origin story in his music.
After arriving in Denver, he would add the electric guitar to his repertoire, and since 2018, he’s put out two albums. He’s not on tour but he recently performed in Telluride as part of the Music on the Green series.
Neoma
65,224 monthly listeners on Spotify
After relocating to Denver from Ecuador in 2018, Carla Huiracocha, alternately known as Neoma, has put out two synth-pop albums that have been widely accepted not just here in Colorado, but also in Central and South America.
With the support of producer and bassist Danny Pauta, Neoma dropped her latest album, “Hyperreal,” in April of this year.
She just performed at Ogden Theatre on Aug. 17 when she opened for Cuco but is not on tour. Keep a finger on the pulse of her social media accounts to see when her next show is announced.