Timbre App Offers Music Guide To SXSW, Now For Android And iOS

By Eliot Van Buskirk of Evolver.fm.

If you live in a place and you enjoy live music, you might enjoy Timbre.

To find good shows near your place, you need simply fire up the app and start listening. You can skip around until you find something you like, and then it’s time to buy tickets.

Last fall, we were impressed by Timbre for iOS, because it employs such a fresh, simple approach to finding shows. Today, just in time for the live music mecca that is SXSW, the app becomes available on Android too.

“Far and away, an Android app has been our most requested enhancement,” said Timbre CEO Mark Kasdorf in a statement highlighting that 75 percent of smartphones shipping in the third quarter of 2012 run Android.

The music portion of SXSW is, perhaps, the perfect test for a live-music-finding app like this. SXSW turns Austin, Texas into a music fan’s dream, where every single venue, and even some non-venues, features live music from all over the world — and the crowd is notoriously app-happy.

As such, it’s also worth noting that Timbre “will also offer a curated list of all bands playing SXSW to enable attendees to find live shows on both Android and iOS.”

Today, the Android version of Timbre is only available in the U.S., but soon, it will roll out to 15 more countries, according to a spokeswoman (the iOS version works in 22 countries). The app’s music comes from Rdio, so if you’re a subscriber, you should be able to listen to full songs; otherwise, 30-second samples should suffice for teling you whether you want to see a show or not.

Will Timbre’s simple interface, which plays music from bands set to play near you soon, handle the sheer glut of music, even in curated form? Attendees can download the Timbre app for iOS and now Android to find out.