It's funny that you mention Neil Schon. I took clarinet lessons form his dad Matt for a couple or years for like $3.50 a half hour at the Sherman Clay Store in the Hillsdale Mall. Matt was a master musician. He could play all the woodwinds and was the music contractor/musical director for the Circle Star Theater in San Carlos if my memory serves me right. He was a prolific writer and arranger for big bands. There were always stacks and stacks on hand written charts all over his studio.

Matt had a rehearsal band on Wednesday nights at the little music store where I took sax lessons on 25th Ave. That is where I first met Neil. He would sit in and try to play out of the guitar book. He sucked so bad. I mean the band was full of the baddest horn players and rhythym section guys on the Peninsula. They all encouraged Neil to play. He would try to play his lame refried BB King licks over II/V changes. It was so horrible.

I went to summer school with him at San Mateo High the summer that he hid in his room and ripped off all the solos from Hendrix and Clapton records. I remember Matt telling me that Neil wanted to quit school and be a guitar player. Matt said that he couldn't tell Neal not to be a musician, but he tried to discourage him because it was a hard way to make a buck.

Neal hung out at a house on Baldwin Ave. in San Mateo where he somehow got hooked up with people that were involved with Pacific Recording on El Camino. Neil went over there when Santana was recording Abraxisis and bugged them until they let him lay some tracks down. The whole story is in Santana's bio that came out a couple of years ago. The rest as they say is history.

I was never a friend of Neils or anything. After I got out of the Army, I took some Harmony and Composition classes at CSM with Dr. Charles "Gus" Gustavson. Matt Schon somehow signed up for the class because he was in the Korean War and could get the same VA benifits that I was getting to pay for it. Matt was a crack up in class. Old enough to be our fathers, he wrote mind blowing stuff.

Anyway, I'm at this Tubes gig at Bimbo's 365. Coming out of the bathroom, I see Neil double park a Maserati or some supercar in front and blow right in waving a guest pass or ticket. I was sitting with some friends that had a new wave/punk band called Kid Courage. We all went to school together, they were an up & coming local group that even opened some shows for Bill Graham Productions.

Neil saw a girl that he knew with us and came over. I looked right at him and said hello and my buddies said, hey whats up Neil? He just looked right through us and hit on this girl. We realized that Neal was toasted, he looked like a ghost.

Of the couple hundred fine schooled musicians and self taught guitar whackers that I came up with, many are still gigging, touring full or part time musicians. None of them ever "made it" in the biz except Neal. I talked to Matt Schon right before he passed away. He told me that Neil had bought him a nice big house, and that Journey had a business office with eight employees. He said that Neal had so much money, that he didn't even know what went on with the business end of Journey.

It's kind of ironic that Matt would have died another broke musician If not for Neal.