Speed metal masters Marty Friedman [left] and Jason Becker
MEDIAPUNCH INC/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO TUNE-UPS
NEWS + NOTES
LOOKING BACK ON recording the scintillating Go Off! with Marty Friedman, Jason Becker, who was 18 when the album was released, says, “It was all special to us, especially now that we both know how precious and fleeting those times were.”
Given Becker’s ALS, one can understand the sentiment. But still, “precious” is an interesting way to define one of the more in-your-face guitar extravaganzas of the Eighties. “That album resulted from me being so inspired by working with Marty,” Becker says. “For Go Off!, I had gotten better at writing and playing, and I was a lot more confident. We just were comfortable with each other. We were getting good at mixing our different flavors. I was able to give more to Go Off!”
By the time Go Off! dropped on Shrapnel Records in ’88, it was the heart of the so-called “shred era,” and Friedman and Becker had already recorded their first record as Cacophony, Speed Metal Symphony (1987), and two frenzied solo records in Friedman’s Dragon’s Kiss (1988) and Becker’s Perpetual Burn (1988).
They’d learned a lot, and it showed on , a record bred through dedication and sheer talent. “When we did shows or toured, it was definitely wilder,” Becker says. “We never trashed hotel rooms or anything, though. It was weird for me; I never did drugs or drank. There was something in me that