Groovy - Psychedelic Rock.  Get your lava lamp out.  Here's an interview with Randy Russ, guitarist. 

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During the time the first album was done, we were developing our sound. Trying different things on stage and we were starting to gel. By the time we did Dragonfly, we were pretty comfortable with each other. The difference between the two albums is the first we were restricted by harsh comments and brow beating by Tony and Marty. By the second album, we were confident and would not let them tell us how to play. Remember the first album, The Legend was partly done by studio musicians. But let me tell you, when I was in their doing my overdubs and I knew something was coming off pretty good, I would feel so good. It would be a total rush.


What gear did you guys use?


Jimmerfield would use a Gibson 335 and 1956 Gold Top Les Paul, which I now own. He used a Blonde Fender  Bassman. I would use for rhythm a 1965 Fender Telecaster through a 1965 Fender Super Reverb, which I still own. For leads, I used a 1959 Les Paul SG through a Vox Super Beatle With 4 Altec Lansing. That thing would scream. I used the internal effects and Maestro Fuzz. Jack the bass player got the richest sound out of this Japanese bass. Don't remember the brand name.


What can you say about the cover artwork and perhaps how many copies were made? Was there any airplay/distribution?


Like I said earlier, Tony and Marty conned some acid freak out of his artwork and I heard that when he was in the office to sign the release for his artwork, he didn't talk, he made animal noises. As far as how many many were pressed, they didn't share that kind of matters with us. They did what they wanted. I heard that 5000 copies were sent to Australia. Casey Cassum played Enjoy Yourself in New York. There was really no push behind it, they didn't know how to and they had such a bad reputation, that the honest people in business didn't want to deal with Tony and Marty. Enjoy Yourself got a little mention in music magazine called Cashbox.


Please comment each song from your LP.

A1          Blue Monday
Blue Monday was fun song to do. Jack Duncan and Barry Davis wrote this one day.

A2          Enjoy Yourself     
Barry Davis, the drummer and myself wrote that at the kitchen table drinking hot coffee. Kind of a summary of life's bummers and where an acid trip can take you. The opening drum part had to be recorded in parts to get the high hat on one side and the snare on the other and the bass in the middle. To me watching it, it looked hard as hell to do.

A3          Hootchie Kootchie Man  
Is song that Duncan wanted to do. We used to do it live and had some good times doing it. Richard had told me a section of my lead was going to be backward, so I had to figure out how to start high and end up in the low register to be in place for the regular forward section. It's hard to describe.

A4          I Feel It   
Another song Duncan wrote. He just came to the session and had the song. I don't remember the particulars. You got to remember, this was 44 years or so ago. And since then there's been a lot of brain cells destroyed.

A5          Trombodo          
Trombodo was done by our producer, Richard Egizi, who Tony and Marty had to hire cause they were in way in over their heads and far as record production. Richard did all on trombone, recorded at different speeds. Richard is one those musical geniuses. He is really the one that kept us going with that project. He was so full of ideas. At the session they asked me how do you say trombone in Spanish, I didn't know so I just said Trombodo.   

A6          Portrait of Youth   
Gerry came in one day with an idea and we all pitched in and came up it.
             
B1          Crazy Woman  
Jack and I wrote that. I had some chord structures and Jack had some words and some chord structures, so it just came together.  
   
B2          She Don't Care               
Written and sung by Jimmerfield. He wanted me to get as freaky as I could on the lead. When I listen to it now, it's not so freaky. I don't know who the song is about, but he wanted everybody just to freak on their instruments. The engineers had hard time getting the right delay that we wanted on the voice part. Got hand it to them, they did a good job.

B3          Time Has Slipped Away
Another Duncan song. I really got into the chord changes. And the lead is wild, man.
            
B4          To Be Free        
One more Duncan song and don't remember the details of this even after listening to it again.

B5          Darlin'               
 Jimmerfield only had this one little section and we had smoked a little, so we did it. And then the laughter came.

B6          Miles Away
Duncan was trying to get this thing together at last minute. We were stumped, and it just started coming together. The line " Purple flag half mast on a Tuesday" was just a filler line that I liked and he left it. Richard did bring in some singers to help us with the background on the album, cause the parts Richard was hearing would have taken us forever to do. There's 9th's and 13th's or some crap like that in there somewhere. I would never been able to do that.

Where all did the Dragonfly play and with who?

Like I said earlier, Dragonfly wasn't a real band. It was a concept of our managers. The Legend played in Ft. Collins Co. with Question Mark and the Mysterians and at the Family Dog with The Soul Survivors and The Box Tops at one gig. And we played a lot with a group, American Standard with Tommy Bolin as the guitar player at The Family Dog. We only did one concert in El Paso and the rest were clubs and bars. The Family Dog was a huge building that probably could get 3 thousand people in.

Did hallucinogens have any impact on the sound?

In 1968, I think, the Legend along with about 10 other people did acid for the first time in the middle of this green pasture surrounded with pine trees. There was even pond with beavers and man what a trip. Jack, Barry and myself only did acid around 10 or 12 times. Gerry and Ernie, I think, did it more. Gerry would go on about this thing that we could get up on stage and all of us would play anything and because we were really gelling, it would all come together. I really didn't understand that idea and kind of freaked me out. Jack and Barry and I would look at each other not knowing what the hell he was talking about. One night, coming down from an acid trip, I came to the realization that if I kept on playing and practicing I could be as good as anyone. I had an inferiority complex.. So you might say the acid helped my confidence. But we by any means, weren't doing it like some of our musician friends.