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Producer, record label owner, and recording artist
Tom Rothrock has played an integral part in the careers of
Elliott Smith,
James Blunt, and
Beck before launching a solo career with the 2006 album Resonator.
Beck's breakthrough hit, "Loser," was originally released on Bong Load Custom Records, a label
Rothrock formed in the early '90s with fellow producers/musicians
Rob Schnapf and Bradshaw Lambert.
Rothrock and
Schnapf went on to record
Beck's platinum-selling debut,
Mellow Gold, with another producer, Carl Stephenson.
Rothrock and
Schnapf also handled production for the track "Ramshackle" on
Beck's 1996 album
Odelay, and a year later the pair were nominated for an Oscar for their recording of
Elliott Smith's "Miss Misery," featured in
Gus Van Sant's film Good Will Hunting.
Smith's 1997 album
Either/Or and his 1998 effort
XO were also helmed by the duo, and two years later they were responsible for the crisp sound of
Richard Thompson's
Mock Tudor. Their work on
the Supreme Beings of Leisure's 2000 self-titled album found them firmly in command of the trip-hop sound. In 2002
Rothrock worked on the heralded About a Boy soundtrack with
Badly Drawn Boy and in 2004 he composed the incidental music for the
Michael Mann film Collateral. His work on
James Blunt's 2005 album
Back to Bedlam helped earn
Blunt five Grammy nominations that year. In 2006 he began his solo career with the full-length and entirely instrumental Resonator, named after a type of acoustic guitar with a metal center that's often referred to by its brand name, Dobro. The Bong Load Custom Records label was revived to release the album. ~ David Jeffries