By DCist Contributor Mehan Jayasuriya

We here at DCist have noticed a rather disturbing trend recently. More and more often, it seems, touring bands are skipping over the District in favor of our neighbor to the north, Baltimore. It makes sense if you think about it: Baltimore has a burgeoning arts scene, a variety of music venues and a seemingly disproportionate reputation for housing a large number of twentysomething scenesters (not that we’re short on any of those here). Normally, when an artist plays Baltimore instead of D.C., it’s an occasion for us to furrow our brows and grumble loudly in disappointment. However, when the artist in question is the reclusive alt-country songwriter Mark Linkous — known better by the nom de plume Sparklehorse — it’s time for a trip up to Charm City.

Linkous, you see, doesn’t get out much. He confirmed this in an interview with WNYC radio earlier this week, claiming that on at least one occasion, he was unable to leave his home in the Smokey Mountains of North Carolina because there was a bear sitting in the back of his pickup truck. Traditionally, Sparklehorse has been a studio project: Linkous tends to hole up at “Static King,” his home studio, with a few friends on occasion (past collaborators have included Thom Yorke, PJ Harvey, Tom Waits, Daniel Johnston and members of the Flaming Lips) and every few years, he emerges with an album. He seldom tours, rarely does interviews and generally keeps a low profile, in keeping with his shy demeanor. And until the release of last year’s appropriately titled Dreamt For Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain, Linkous seemed to be in the midst of an unusually long hibernation. Hopefully this helps explain why we were more than willing to travel north of the District line to see him.

But for whatever reason, Sparklehorse was booked at the harbor-front venue Ram’s Head Live! Belying its off-kilter, superfluously punctuated name, Ram’s Head stands in stark contrast to the District’s (or for that matter, Baltimore’s other) delightfully dingy rock dives. Essentially, Ram’s Head is what a rock club might look like if it was designed by Disney. Plasma screens displaying the performance litter the venue, so that you never even have to leave your seat at one of five bars or three “food stations.” Attendants in the bathroom stand expectantly next to the tip jar, selling everything from cosmetics to condoms. And every surface in the 26,000 square foot space is bright, colorful and clean. Imagine the House of Blues, but even more sterile.