A whole heckuva lot happened in the world of Coyote Music in 2012.

I created Coyote Music in 1995 to support the two bands for which I played drums: megalo and 3 Penny Opera. Eric Hsu kindly hosted a single web page and handled our web needs for the next decade and a half. And since its formation, Coyote Music has collaborated with many others who helped grow the concept and reach a number of milestones.

But in 2012, things took off to an entirely new level.

People. I would like to welcome and thank Coyote Music's two new writers: Lauren Gribble and Ringo Cisneros. Having writers who are eager to contribute their talents to Coyote Music is really helpful and frankly quite badass. And in the larger scheme, they both actively seek out new bands who they think deserve more press...so they are great for artists, too.

Content. In 1995 we had 1 web page. By 2005, we'd grown to a whopping 75 web pages. After a 2008 re-build of our site allowed for more extensive content control, the site grew quickly, to about 700 pages by the end of 2011. But in 2012 alone, Coyote Music's website content more than doubled to more than 1,500 Artists, Shows, Venues, Videos, Reviews, News posts, People, Organizations, Press Releases, Festivals, and assorted sundries.

Festivals. 2012 brought Coyote Music across the path of Stewart Ramser, organizer of the Viva Big Bend music festival and industry conference in West Texas (thanks to my longtime friend May Leal for making that connection, btw). Our coverage of Viva Big Bend resulted many great additions to the site, including the entirely new Festivals section itself and a great deal more social media interaction between Coyote Music and its artists.

Videos. Videos were added to our site at the beginning of last year, perhaps spurring our content boom. It's more fun to watch stuff, and generally if you see a band on the internet you want to SEE a band on the internet, and not just read about it and look at a list of shows and stuff about them. ¡Viva los videos!

Posters. Having included posters on many of our show pages, we decided to create an area to feature just the visual artists who help promote our musical artists. And so we created the Poster Gallery.

So I want to personally say "thank you" to everyone who helped make 2012 Coyote Music's best year yet. There are several projects in the works to make 2013 even better, so please stay tuned to our developments via our Twitter (@coyotemusic) and Facebook Page.

¡Viva la musica y las artistas de Música del Coyote!