AUGUST 8 – 1988 N.W.A. releases Straight Outta Compton;1974 Nixon resigns; 1910 Happy Birthday Ernest Lawrence, Cyclotron; 1876 Edison patents mimeograph; 1970 Tigers beat yankees in 73 minutes
AUGUST 8
1988 – N.W.A. releases Straight Outta Compton.
Five men: Easy-E, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren, and DJ Yella released an autobiography of west coast rap that was not expected to rush to #1 on the charts. By 1981, crack-cocaine was introduced to the streets of cities all over America, and it was turning neighborhoods into war zones, with fatalities from all gangs littering the streets.
Compton, South Central Los Angeles, 1987, a 16-year old O’shea Jackson, or Ice Cube to his friends, wrote the lyrics to Boys N the Hood, describing life on the streets. It was produced by Andrew Young, or Dre for short, but after east coast rappers Home Boys Only turned the song down, it would need the magnetic vocals of Eric Wright, a.k.a. Easy-E, to deliver the punch.
After that, Easy formed Ruthless Records with manager Jerry Heller, and NWA got signed to Priority Records. Armed with controversial songs like Gansta Gangsta, F the Police, and Dopeman, Straight Outta Compton would be released on this day in 1988, introducing the world, to the streets of crack cocaine, violence, police brutality, and survival.
The album was an instant hit, and the band began touring. With lyrics like I’m a sniper with a hell of a scope/ Taking out a cop or two, they can’t cope with me, NWA wound up on an FBI list Many of the other lyrics prompted a group called the Parents Music Resource Center, led by Tipper Gore, wife of future Vice President Al Gore, to slap a sticker on this another albums featuring suggestive content that said Parents Advisory: Explicit Lyrics.
But Straight Outta Compton probably had an even bigger impact, as years later the streets of southcentral LA would erupt into riots and flames as a leaked video caught white police beating a black man named Rodney King.
The streets were brought into the studio, and Easy would part ways with the other boys. Cube and Dre went on to pursue their own very successful solo careers, while Easy died of AIDS in 1995.
1974 – Nixon resigns on national television.
…Secretary of State Henry Kissinger suggested this move “in the national interest” and speechwriter Raymond Price wrote SP 3-125, President Richard Nixon’s resignation from the White House. The event was filmed and shown on TV and shocked Amerce. For two years he had been battling the fallout from the Watergate scandal, where a member of his staff and several other burglars were caught by police at the Democratic National Convention headquarters, trying to wiretap the Watergate complex. Legend has it Forest Gump was the one who called the police but that hasn’t been verified. Just seeing if you’re paying attention. For the next two years, Nixon denied any involvement, but in July 1973 the Watergate tapes were discovered which had recorded conversations between Nixon and his staff members authorizing the break-in.
On August 8 1974 Tricky Dick Nixon bowed to pressure from his Cabinet and public pressure to resign as President, the only time that had ever happened in US history. The following day on August 9 he took off with his family in a helicopter, waved a V, smiled, and left the Whitehouse towards Yorba Linda, California. Several minutes later, Gerald Ford took over as president of the United States.
1901 – Happy birthday Ernest Lawrence of Canton SC who invented the Cyclotron, which is a type of particle accelerator used for high-beams for testing nuclear physics. Huh?
1876 – Thomas Edison patents the mimeograph, which is a low-cost printing press that forces ink through a stencil onto paper. 1854 – Smith & Wesson patents metal bullet cartridges. 1911—Millionth patent is filed in the US Patent Office by Francis Holton for a tubeless vehicle tire.
1920 – Tigers beat the Yankees 1-*0 in shortest AL game, 73 minutes.
1775 – Capt. Morgan and his army arrive in Boston. An unlikely hero, Daniel Morgan had an uncanny ability to get untrained soldiers battle-ready The Continental Congress called on American colonies to send troops to British-occupied Boston, and Morgan was perhaps the best choice. He quickly grouped nearly a hundred men to march to Massachusetts to serve under General George Washington. Morgan’s men had skills in the area of sharp-shooting, which proved to be very effective. Morgan later on was also the man in charge to squash the Whiskey Rebellion in a newly formed United States of America. He assembled a force so large it ended the rebellion without any firing a shot.
1963 — The Kingsman release Louie Louie. It not only had a huge influence on rock and roll, it it’s lyrics were investigated for obscenity by the FBI. After four months (four month! Not four minutes) the FBIO couldn’t hear anything obscene about it at all. It’s just about a sailor going back home to Jamaica to see his girlfriend. I’m having a hard time finding how that is obscene. According to louielouie..net there are over 1500 cover versions to this song.