Our current roster of artists includes; Mark Dignam and the House of Song, Ben Shannon and Broken Fences. Mark Dignam and the House of Song:
Born in Ireland, Mark Dignam was raised in the North Side Dublin suburb of Finglas. His father was a truck driver, his mother a housewife who often sang while she worked, filling Mark’s childhood home with song. His first appearance on a school hall stage wa
s at only eleven years old. A noticeable vocal talent sparked big dreams and convinced him to leave Finglas at 18, when he found a very cheap (that is to say, unheated) apartment in an old Georgian tenement in the center of Dublin. Mark made his rent money busking on the city streets for pocket change and exposure, along with his friends, future Oscar winner Glen Hansard (The Frames, The Swell Season), Mic Christopher (The Mary Janes), and KIla (Irish Traditional super-group) among others. They quickly became the darlings of Grafton Street, a well-known center of Dublin busking, counting among their audience such luminaries as The Waterboys, Van Morrison, and Sinead O’Connor. Mark struck out on his own in the nineties, releasing the acclaimed Poetry and Songs From the Wheel in 1995. The album, named a top ten best debut of 1995 by Ireland’s Hot Press Magazine, cemented Mark’s reputation as a powerful voice on the singer/songwriter circuit. He’s continued to release records, from 1997’s In a Time of Overstatement, a stark collection of spiritual and political musings, to 2005’s Box Heart Man, chosen as one of WYEP Pittsburgh’s top picks for 2005. Mark has been invited to open for, or tour with, The Swell Season, David Gray, Billy Bragg, Joan Armatrading, Richard Thompson, Mike Nichols (of The Alarm) and many others…
Today, when he isn’t touring with his band “The House of Song,” or at home with his beautiful family, Mark is in the studio preparing his long-awaited follow up to Box Heart Man, Monumental Way at Treelady Studios in Pennsylvania.
