![\"\u201cLarry\"](\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/Webman-vertical.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nHis father offered support and encouragement to his musician son, leavened with a dose of parental practicality. Chase your dreams, he counseled, but get an education that will allow you to have a meaningful life and productive career just in case the music thing doesn\u2019t work out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re a teenager, the thought of failure never crosses your mind, but what my father said made sense,\u201d Webman recalls. A family friend who was attending Clark told him about the University\u2019s active music scene \u2014 regular concerts in the campus pub, bands at Spree Day, and shows in Atwood Hall, where Jimi Hendrix and The Grateful Dead once played.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was all in. Webman arrived at Clark in 1988, quickly joined the Pub Entertainment Committee, and found himself lugging PA speakers and cables, sticky from soda and beer, up and down basement stairs to the performance venue. The unglamorous labor was a small price to pay for hearing some great music that first year: Fishbone, Ziggy Marley, Little Feat, and \u2019Til Tuesday, the Boston-based band who performed in Atwood just before breaking up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his sophomore year, Webman took over as Pub Entertainment Committee president. \u201cBy dumb luck, the three seniors who ran PEC graduated, and I was the only one interested in taking it on,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI got a two-minute tutorial in how to fax offers to agents and talk to them on the phone. And then it was, \u2018Okay. You\u2019re in charge now.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He made his first offer to the band-of-the-moment, The Replacements \u2014 $7,500 for a show at Clark. The band\u2019s agent immediately called him and unleashed a stream of invective, denouncing the offer as an insult and Webman as a schmuck. What was The Replacements\u2019 asking price at the time? Webman chuckles. \u201cProbably $15,000.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Undeterred, Webman brought all kinds of bands to campus \u2014 reggae, blues, and rock of all stripes, including acts incubated in the MTV universe, like the Spin Doctors and the Psychedelic Furs. The genre-bending Vermont band Phish landed at Clark years before they became a phenomenon. Webman haggled with their manager, who wanted $1,500, and got them to play for $1,350.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hiring bands on the rise came with challenges. In a pre-digital world, raising students\u2019 awareness of the talent soon to be in their midst meant plastering campus with promotional flyers and, well, that was about it. Word-of-mouth was not a euphemism: He literally had to ask Clarkies to attend. \u201cWe\u2019d have a great band in the pub, and maybe 30 or 40 people would show,\u201d Webman recalls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
His three years as PEC president allowed Webman to foster relationships with talent agents in New York and Los Angeles, to the point where they began calling him to offer bands. The rapport also gave him insight into a potential career path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was a business major with a minor in music and I played in bands, but I wasn\u2019t thinking about working in the business end of music. I was still thinking about a career as a musician,\u201d he says. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t until my senior year when I thought, \u2018Maybe I can do this.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Webman returned home following graduation and applied for traditional jobs in marketing and human resources, with no luck. At his father\u2019s urging, he paid a visit to a small Connecticut agency that booked tribute bands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI begrudgingly went down there, a 22-year-old know-it-all,\u201d he says with a laugh. \u201cI walked into the owner\u2019s office \u2014 he worked out of a space above his garage. Turns out, his assistant had just given her notice that day, and he hired me on the spot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After two years spent finding work for musicians channeling Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and AC\/DC, Webman was bored. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI asked my boss for permission to book a couple of original bands, and he said fine, as long as I kept the tribute bands working,\u201d he recalls. Webman went out and signed the Boston independent band Letters to Cleo, which eventually signed a deal with major label Giant Records and had one of their videos featured on the popular TV show \u201cMelrose Place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAt the time, all these agents from L.A. and New York started calling the band\u2019s manager, trying to sign the band. They\u2019d say, \u2018This little mom-and-pop agency can\u2019t take you to the next level. You should dump this guy and come with us.\u2019 So what was I going to do? Do I lose this band and continue booking tribute bands, or am I going to try and figure out how to take the next step?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He figured it out. Through an introduction from Letters to Cleo\u2019s attorney, Webman connected with an up-and-coming agent, Marty Diamond, who was then at a large New York agency but was forming his own company. In March 1994, Webman joined Little Big Man Booking, and moved to New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy dad drove me to the New Haven train station to take the Metro North Railroad into New York, where I was going to crash on my soon-to-be boss\u2019 couch until I could get an apartment. He said, \u2018Look, I hope this works out for you,\u2019 \u201d Webman remembers. \u201cAgain, in my early 20s I wasn\u2019t worried about failure. I just wanted to keep working in music, keep booking bands. This was an opportunity for me, and I was going for it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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From inside a windowless one-room office, Little Big Man was launched. Webman and Diamond outhustled larger agencies to sign acts with record labels \u2014 the lack of bureaucracy in their small company helped keep them nimble (Webman eventually became a partner). The two haunted small clubs and festivals, hit every music showcase they could, and traveled to England a couple of times a year to scout talent and network with record labels and managers. They signed musicians at various stops along their professional journeys, from independent bands with small-yet-fierce followings to popular performers at the top of their game, to once-popular acts looking for a reboot. Their roster grew to include Sarah McLachlan, Barenaked Ladies, Avril Lavigne, Arctic Monkeys, KT Tunstall, Sigur R\u00d3s, and Jason Mraz, among many others. For 12 years, the company grew and thrived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the music business began diversifying, it became clear that more than hustle was needed. In 2006, Little Big Man agreed to a purchase by the larger Paradigm Talent Agency in New York, whose reach extends into all corners of the entertainment industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs artists progress in their careers and have families and kids, they don\u2019t want to be on the road all the time,\u201d Webman says. \u201cThey\u2019re looking to write books, they want to act, they want to score films. As a small boutique agency, we didn\u2019t have those capabilities. Sometimes agents lose an act because the artist wants those other things. Now, we have that capability, and do it better than our competitors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Digital music has dramatically altered the landscape, he notes. Record labels have seen their controlling influence over artists\u2019 careers diminish, as music gets released through streaming channels and other means. Still, the agent\u2019s role is stronger than ever, Webman insists, because without labels doing the grunt work of helping emerging artists launch their careers, agents are even more critical to shepherd them through the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ultimately, there is no substitute for pure talent. Webman cites the trajectory of Sara Bareilles, whose 2014 anthem \u201cBrave\u201d became a radio staple. Bareilles has since composed the music for the hit Broadway show \u201cWaitress\u201d and portrayed Mary Magdalene in the NBC live Easter production of \u201cJesus Christ Superstar.\u201d Yet she was unknown until she showed up at the apartment of Webman\u2019s colleague with her portable keyboard. \u201cShe was having no luck getting an agent, so my co-worker agreed to hear her play. That day, he said we had to sign her.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Among his other clients are the Dropkick Murphys, best known for their hit, \u201cI\u2019m Shipping Up to Boston,\u201d which director Martin Scorsese incorporated into his mob film \u201cThe Departed.\u201d The band came into the fold in 2011, seeking to enhance their profile. Webman went to work, helping package the Celtic-punk band into an act that\u2019s gone from playing mid-size clubs to 5,000-person venues. \u201cWe figured out how to grow their audience and grow them on the financial end,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They\u2019ve added fresh artists from the U.S., U.K., and Iceland like David Gray, MGMT, Of Monsters and Men, Santigold, and Bastille. Webman can\u2019t attend all his clients\u2019 shows, which take place around the world at any given time, but that doesn\u2019t mean his fingerprints aren\u2019t all over them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A tour starts when a band\u2019s manager informs the agent they want to go on the road. Webman puts together the itinerary of venues, gauging location, size, and availability. He determines how the act will be traveling, assesses the parameters of the tour, negotiates expenses, and is the final word on a host of marketing and media strategies. \u201cEvery aspect touches my desk at some point,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI always go to the first show of the major tours, the New York and Los Angeles shows, and big festivals. You\u2019ve got to remain visible to the artist, because other agencies are always telling them they can do a better job. It\u2019s the nature of the business \u2014 the grass is always greener for some people, and you always have to prove yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bands just a few years removed from playing in their parents\u2019 garages today are tearing up dive bars in New York, Boston, and Miami. They are the undercard at music festivals, where audiences impatiently wait for them to finish their set so the headliners can go on. They lug their own gear, buy their own beers, sing their original music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And they are talented \u2014 it\u2019s just that few people know it yet. But Larry Webman does, and he\u2019s working to ensure one day you will, too. That\u2019s his job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From Clark magazine, winter 2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Larry Webman sat in a London pub and talked to a man about a band. The year was 2000. Webman and a colleague, Marty Diamond, both of them talent agents, had journeyed across the Atlantic to meet with the artists\u2019 manager. The two had listened to the early recordings made by the young musicians, who, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":28469,"template":"","meta":{"story_color":"var(--clarku-color-blue)","story_headerImg":28469,"section_label":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[225,251],"displayed_author":[235],"featured":[],"topic":[232],"class_list":["post-28468","story","type-story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-humanities","category-business-innovation","displayed_author-jim-keogh","topic-alumni"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Larry](\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/Webman-Barenaked-Ladies.jpeg\")
![\"\u201cWebman-Bareilles\"](\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/Webman-Bareilles.jpg\")
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