Emily: The Emerald City Video Interview
The Internet is meeting Emily for the first time, 25 years later.
It’s been 25 years since Mike Barbosa, Sean McGorty, and their friend Luke Leblanc recorded Emily, the self-titled album for their band of the same name.
It’s been about a week since James Michael Farley, a sketch comedian and TV writer, discovered a box of Emily CDs at a New Hampshire thrift store and inadvertently kicked off a viral sensation.
Emily, with a ‘90s indie rock feel (because that’s what they, fundamentally, were), recorded the self-titled album the weekend after the 9/11 terror attacks at a studio near Boston, and operated as an act for between five and seven years starting in the ‘90s. While Emily never got their big break, both McGorty and Barbosa are still playing music regularly (although for Barbosa, it isn’t his day job).
The CD’s thrift-store origin and the revelation that the CD was nothing like Farley expected call back to one of the great lost-and-found albums in internet history, Panchiko’s Death Metal. The big difference is that it took Farley only a matter of hours to get the band back together -- figuratively, at least for now -- rather than months of a frenzied internet search.
So, let’s catch up with Emily, and see what they’ve been doing for the last 25 years…!
You can follow Sean McGorty on Instagram and TikTok, and check out his solo music here.
You can follow Mike Barbosa on Instagram.
You can follow James Michael Farley on Instagram, or check out his website for more information about his upcoming projects.
You can also download a copy of the Emily album on the Internet Archive.
Since I’ve been very bad about doing this in the past, here’s a batch of links to my existing books, which presumably make great gifts if you are lucky enough to know somebody in one of these niche fandoms:
Best Movie Ever: An Oral History of Deborah Kaplan & Harry Elfont’s Josie and the Pussycats
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/best-movie-ever-russ-burlingame/1140177148?ean=9798988311720
https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Best-Movie-Ever/Russ-Burlingame/9798988311720?id=9340900023696
https://bookshop.org/book/9798988311720
The Gold Exchange: The Unofficial Booster Gold Companion
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-gold-exchange-russ-burlingame/1143464630?ean=9798988311737
https://bookshop.org/book/9798988311737
https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Gold-Exchange/Russ-Burlingame/9798988311737?id=9340900023696
A Legend In His Own Time: A Fast-Forward Guide to the Greatest Hero You’ve Never Heard Of (with Kevin Allen)
Getting the Fin Right: The Collected Savage Dragon Interviews vol. 1 (with Gavin Higginbotham)
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/getting-the-fin-right-russ-burlingame/1146574344?ean=9798988311744
