WXPN Welcomes Robert Ellis with Alicia Blue at MilkBoy **CANCLED** Sunday, October 4, 2026 Doors: 6:30 PM | Show: 7:30 PM 21+ with Valid Photo ID required for entry About MilkBoy Visit milkboyphilly.com or venue details including how to get here, parking, FAQ, MB Merch, Private Events, Menus and all things MilkBoy Please Note: MilkBoy’s stage is located on the 2nd floor and is standing room only. All patrons must be able to walk the flight of steps in order to enter the venue, as there is no elevator in the building. Food, Concessions + Drink Menus | Venue FAQ | Contact Info - About Robert Ellis Website | Facebook | YouTube | Spotify Recorded live to tape in just two days, Robert Ellis’s exquisite new album, Yesterday’s News, is as stripped-down as it gets, with the celebrated songwriter and producer’s delicate, reedy tenor accompanied only by nylon string guitar, upright bass, and the occasional piece of handheld percussion. The arrangements are harmonically sophisticated here, drawing on the open tunings and intricate fingerpicking of English songwriters like Nick Drake or Richard Thompson, and Ellis’s performances are similarly subtle and nuanced, tapping into the bittersweet longing of Chet Baker and the playful poignancy of Bill Evans and Jim Hall. While that might seem surprising coming off 2019’s raucous Texas Piano Man, subverting expectations is nothing new for Ellis. Born and raised outside Houston, he gained early acclaim for his piercing introspection and absorbing narratives, but over the course of five solo albums, he flirted with everything from Paul Simon and John Prine to Elton John and Joni Mitchell in a series of sonic and visual transformations that ran the gamut from Redneck Steely Dan to Lone Star Liberace. NPR hailed his “musical daring and impeccable songcraft,” while Rolling Stone praised his “sharp eye for storytelling,” and the New York Times lauded his writing as an emotional “gut punch.” Yesterday’s News marks Ellis’s debut LP for Niles City Records, an outgrowth of the famed Niles City Sound studio he and longtime collaborator Josh Block run in Fort Worth, TX. About Alicia Blue Website | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | Spotify Raised between the orange groves of California and the south borderlands of Texas, Nashville-based Alicia Blue writes country songs rooted in desire, consequence, and control. The daughter of a truck driver and a bank teller, her voice carries a blue-collar directness shaped by classic country. Alicia doesn’t look away from her past—she instead aims straight through. She lands between the outlaw gravity of Waylon, the high-lonesome clarity of Dolly and the ache of Emmylou. It's not borrowed, but claimed. Her 2024 duet with Lucinda Williams, “Tennessee,” is proof. Four-time Grammy Award–winning producer Shooter Jennings heard Alicia's demo's last year, calling her voice "as rare as they come, coming along once in a generation". Together, refusing to play it safe, they made her debut album "Country Desire", due out Aug 28. The sessions pulled together a powerhouse of players—Jay Bellerose on drums (Alison Krauss, Robert Plant, Ray LaMontagne), Brian Whelan on keys and textures (Dwight Yoakam), Ted Russell Kamp on bass (Sturgill Simpson,Tanya Tucker), Greg Leisz on pedal steel (Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton), and Alicia’s guitarist Alex Labrie—each one serving the songs rather than polishing them. With label support from Soundly (Thirty Tigers), dates opening for Charley Crockett, and the first single, "Kentucky Cowboy", landing her on the cover of Spotify's "Emerging Americana" playlist—the ground is shifting beneath her feet. Alicia Blue isn’t arriving. She’s already here.