Izzy Heltai

One Liner: Excellently lo-fi gentle rock

Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia, but folk rock
Home:  Boston-ish

Poster Position: 31 (almost the bottom of the poster)
Weekend Two Only. Saturday.

Thoughts: You read a name like Izzy Heltai, and what do you think you are about to hear?  I figured this would be a female TikTok star of Asian descent doing bedroom pop.  Ends up that Heltai is a Hungarian/Transylvanian last name and this is just a little white dude making nice sounding lite rock.

HIs website says that he lives with his mom.  It also says that his music walks a seam between confessional lo-fi musings and raucous basement rock.  He grew up in a Boston suburb, and started making music based upon his parents' love for folk music.  He started on open mics at 16 years old, and recognizes now that the songs were awful.  Since then, he's figured out the music and also come out as trans, even though he admits that he is still a "white cis-passing trans guy."  Which is a different subsection of the trans community than I am used to thinking about - I guess that means that he hasn't transitioned, but he identifies as a woman.  Although he still goes by "he" in his interviews.  Dude's got a moustache!

The tunes are sadly very few - he has five songs available on Spotify, all of which ended up on his lone EP, 2021's Day Plan (5 Songs Written 4 the End of the World).  At times, I hear Dawes in this - that is the closest comp I can bring up in my head.  But either way, it is an enjoyable little romp into some folky rock tunes.  Top track is the title track and first one on the album, "Day Plan."  425k streams.

Beautiful freaking song.  Emotionally cathartic and lovely to listen to.  I really like it.  The second-most popular tune right now is "Met On The Internet," with 28k streams.  Another pretty little ditty.

I want to volunteer to sing the "aahhhh ahhhhh ahhhhhhhh!" background parts that he is likely just multitracking here.  Deliciously jenky video too.  I'd sign up for more of this guy, and to see him live.  Not so sure about how the show will go if he is on a monster stage trying to pump it up to reach the people in the back, but I'd pay money right now to see him play the Cactus Cafe.  Good stuff.