Jonny 'Gumar' Tutt is someone who has been involved in music for a long time from working at legendary indie K Records in Olympia, WA to running Bed of Roses and putting on top parties in Portland for over a decade now. Years before I knew Jonny, my cousin would regale me with stories of Gumar and his Magical Midi Band, a rollicking stage show experience where--presided over by a giant robot--the band jammed out on cardboard instruments over Jonny’s Daft Punk-inspired beats. Based in Portland (the Rose City) for over 17 years, Jonny produces music as Break Mode and manages the Bed of Roses collective which includes Break Mode, Palm Pilot, MagicPink, Kitchen DJ, Cole Baby, as well as others in their orbit.

Bed of Roses is a label as well and has put out music by Break Mode, Wormbox, Etbonz, MagicPink, WAV Fuzz and other producers.

Portland seems to have a bit going on right now...
I would say so… It is about to be summertime and I am feeling very inspired by the current state of the scene. Portland summers are so nice. Great time to visit the otherwise grey and somewhat rainy city, which I also like but know it isn’t for everyone. Anyways, there are a lot of great parties happening around town by a number of different folks and crews most of which are interconnected and friends with each other. Recently we have been collaborating with our dear friends Silicon Radio and have been having fun throwing great parties with them.

There’s also Freak Out!, which is a collaboration between myself and Nate (Palm Pilot), where we’ll throw parties where we DJ all night or occasionally feature guests, like the last party where we had Cole join us to make it a Freak Out! meets Wormbox party which was kinda the predecessor of what we’ll be doing in Berlin in June.

I’ve always felt Portland has a really unique feel and vibe. Would you agree?
It certainly does. I grew up in Seattle and lived in Olympia for some time so I am a bit partial to the Pacific Northwest in general. Portland is perfect for me right now. It has a good energy to it and I have a lot of very close and dear friends here which makes it all the more home-like.

Bed of Roses as a label has been going for a few years now can you tell us a little about it?
Yeah man, Bed of Roses has been happening for quite some time and is constantly evolving but I think it has matured in a proper way and I am really excited for our future. I just revamped our podcast mix series and we recently got mixes from the likes of Marijana Croon, A-Tweed, and Ludviq. More to come. I have been traveling through Europe playing a couple parties and a few radio shows. Both Palm Pilot and Cole Baby are meeting me in Germany so we can bring some Bed of Roses flavor to Berlin where Freak Out! and Wormbox will be jamming at Sameheads on June 5th.

Additionally, I’m curating this new compilation series called 4 Ugly DJs ONLY, the first volume of which should be out in a month or two and is packed with some solid tracks.

I love your “Cafe del Gumar” mixtapes– a distinctive take on the classic chillout vibe. The cover art is certainly a statement.
Oh yeah, I wanted to tip my hat to those CdM comps; I collected them when I was younger. Not just the proper ones but even the cheesy “Chillout 2.0” stuff with a girl in a bikini on the cover…there are classics but then there’s also this cheesy element to them that I love. I also put other bits alongside that are not necessarily standard chill stuff so really it’s my take on that vibe.

Tell us about this mix...
This mix is from Palm Pilot and I under our moniker Freak Out! and it references a lot of things we would play at one of our nights in Portland. A couple of them we for sure played at the last Freak Out! party. We like to ride the wave where genres collide and create euphoric moments that can be exciting or excite us at least. We hope the dancefloor is along for the ride.

You've hosted some interesting selectors--Diego/Suzanne Kraft, Niklas Wandt, Mood Hut...
Oh yeah…there have been some great parties and we have been very fortunate to connect with these artists. The cool thing is we’ve had the luck of getting some of these folks on before they blew up. The Mood Hut guys were on their way up and we kinda caught them at the right time. Diego has been a friend for quite some time. More recently we collaborated with Silicon Radio and hosted Xica Soul who is an amazing DJ and I have a feeling she will be a pretty regular name on the scene here if not already. We also threw a brilliant party with Niklas Wandt who was an instant homey on arrival. Next up is Sound Metaphors! Good stuff if I do say!

Finally, could you give us five tracks that sum up the vibe of BoR.
I can’t even begin to tell you how much questions like this torture me haha...

Bed of Roses is hosting Sound Metaphors at Holocene Portland on 23 May along with party collaborators Silicon Radio. Get involved via their Insta. Read more on RA HERE.

A good portion of the crew is also making their way to Berlin and will be playing June 5th at Sameheads as Freak Out! and Wormbox. Read more on that at RA HERE.