A look back: Here’s an end-of-year overview of major music happenings in the South Florida music scene in 1988 as it appeared in the Miami News column “OFF THE RECORD” penned by News music writer Chris Potash. Selections from this and other ’80s newspaper stories about the 1980s SFLA music and art scenes are included in Punk Under the Sun.  

“The local music scene in 1988: A to Z” 
December 29, 1988 
Alternative music thrived on the airwaves on the University of Miami’s WVUM, onstage at Fire & Ice (of course), the Reunion Room and Respectable Street Café, and on various nights at Woody’s, Wet Paint Café and Biscayne Baby, and in the hearts of those cruising minions in Coconut Grove and South Miami.    
    Blues still ruled at Tobacco Road, even though the Brickell suit-and-tie crowd and the weekend swarm of prolificly perfumed and cologned yuppies often nullified any atmosphere
   Cameo Theatre fans celebrated the hall’s 50th year of existence, while its custodian, Crossover Concerts, blazed a brave trail through virgin musical territory by bringing World Beat and world-class reggae music to the Beach. Also, the Cameo’s monthly poetry night (on the first Wednesday of every month) remained a revolutionary way to showcase locak rap, experimental music and provocative prose.
   Club Beirut closed; China Club closed; Club 1235 closed twice and reopened as Decos.
Compact discs put a stranglehold on long-playing albums.
“Dirty Dancing” topped the Billboard pop chart for umpteen weeks in a row.
   English bat-band Specimen headlined a gothapalooza at Lincoln Theater with local openers the Preachers, Agony in the Garden, and After the Funeral. 
   Exposé, Pantera Productions‘ claim to fame, failed to release a follow-up to the trio’s multiplatinum Exposure LP.
Fat Boys wore out their novelty appeal.
   Gloria Estefan and her Miami Sound Machine returned triumphantly to Miami after a year-plus on the road.
   Howard Davis opened the Backdoor behind Club Nu (Tuesday nights only) to some vintage New Wave sounds. 
Husker Du, America’s premier post-punk band, broke up quietly early in the year.
   Iggy Pop put on emotional shows at the Cameo Theater and Summers on the Beach in Fort Lauderdale in October. Casting AIDS warnings to the wind, Iggy reinstated an old punk tradition—he spit at the audience, and they spat back. 
Julio Iglesias, Robert Plant, and Salt-N-Pepa played consecutive nights in July to inaugurate the Miami Arena.
   Kitchen Club opened in a hole-in-the-wall beneath the infamous Sea Gull Hotel on Miami Beach. Lack of pretension and no cover make this place a must. 
Local music writer Tom Moon surprised and offended many when he wrote a scathing commentarty railing against the Miami Sound Machine and fickle Miami audiences (“The style and the look still count for more than the substance”) before leaving the Miami Herald for the Philadelphia Inquirer in June.
MTV gave away a Caribbean island in July as a promotional stunt. It also kicked off “MTV International,” a Spanish-language version of its popular television video show format.
New Music America came to Miami in December; the promoters hoped to win converts to the merits of contemporary classical music. As a result, some became believers, and some complained.
Orbison, Roy, born April 23, 1936, in Wink, Texas, died Dec. 6 of a heart attack. He is survived by millions of fans and legions of rock stars who looked to him as a father figure.
   Penrod’s invaded South Beach with its heavy-handed, commercialized version of fun. After securing sole concession rights for the Beach from 15th Street to South Pointe a few years ago, the entrepreneurs went and constructed a huge hull of a beach club three levels high. It opened Dec. 9. It’s like having a piece of Broward in our backyard.
   Quiet Riot released another album.
   Reggae Report magazine out of Coconut Grove announced in May it was increasing its circulation in Jamaica to meet the growing demand for music journalism in that country.
Riots between teenaged gangs at two Power 96 (WPOW-FM) sponsored concert events in July and September disproved the theory that music soothes the savage breast.
    Sting stunk in concert in January, presumably because he had a bad head cold. After canceling his second Miami show, he reportedly recuperated on Key Biscayne at the Sonesta Beach Hotel and promised to make up the date at the end of his tour—he didn’t.
Ticketmaster ticket outlets bought out BASS ticket outlets. This town wasn’t big enough for both of them.
Tiny Tim was just one of the curios to perform at the menagerie known as Club Nu, which also hosted dancing bears, rollerskating chimps, flailing mudmen and some of the hottest foxes ever to stalk a bar top.
   Tropics International at 10th Street and Ocean Drive remained committed to showcasing contemporary jazz.
UB40’s version of “Red, Red Wine” hit the top of the charts five years after they released it. Why?
Van Halen and its entourage of heavy-metal support acts—Scorpions, Dokken, Metallica and Kingdom Come—bombed as the Monsters of Rock this summer, even though a new album, OU812, is still charting high.
   Wet Paint—the house at 360 N.E. 20th Terr., not the copy-cat café—was returned to dust in September after failing numerous times to pass Dade County minimum housing standards. The art, atmosphere, comradery and music—by the likes of bands such as Neon Jesus—will be missed by a special few who knew it when. 
    X-rated local rap group 2 Live Crew earned its second gold record last month. That’s 500,000 albums sold.
   Zero sympathy goes out to those who refuse to look for the good in our local music scene.