Parties and clubs come and go, so you’ve got to tip your hat to dynamic duo Sleepy & Boo (a.k.a. Mike and Begoña Gwertzman). The force behind Basic NYC, they’ve held court for the past five years at the Sullivan Room. In addition to DJing their own events and continually breaking new music and giving up-and-coming local DJs a leg up, they’ve played host to a plethora of world-class jocks and a litany of amazing parties. Big Shot caught up with the twosome to find out if it really takes two to make a party go right.

Basic NYC has called the Sullivan Room in NYC home for five years, which is more than a lifetime when it comes to residencies. What were your initial plans for the party? Did you think it would continue for so many years?

Mike & Begoña Gwertman: When we first started out, we felt that there was a lot of great underground music that wasn’t getting heard in New York. Our goal was to provide a place where killer DJs and up-and-coming artists could come and play for a real fun, down-to-earth crowd. So we just kind of focused in on the DJs we liked and the producers who were in our record bag. We really weren’t thinking about anything beyond our next party at the time, and it just kind of picked up momentum from there. It’s become a passion for us and just so much fun to do that everything has gone by so quickly.

How have you been able to maintain and grow your events? What have been some of the greatest challenges?

It’s been important for us to really stay focused on what we personally like musically and trust our instincts as far as which DJs we want to bring in to the party. You’re not going to hear a DJ there that we personally don’t support as an artist, so that really gives the party a good consistency when it comes to the quality of the music. That’s allowed us to build it up over time and be able to reach out to even bigger and bigger artists. As far as challenges go, just trying to stay on top of all the different channels of communication there are can keep you busy. It’s important to really be out front nowadays with an online presence.

“You’re not going to hear a DJ there that we personally don’t support as an artist, so that really gives the party a good consistency when it comes to the quality of the music. That’s allowed us to build it up over time and be able to reach out to even bigger and bigger artists.”

Musical styles come and go. How has your crowd and sound changed over the years?

Our party has definitely expended musically. At first we had a lot of house music DJs, and that’s really broadened over the last few years to include much more techno and tech-house. The crowd hasn’t changed too much aside from new faces always showing up – it’s always been a very music-focused, party-focused crowd that isn’t pretentious at all. We’ve always been proud of the great vibe at our events and it’s something the artists really feed off of.

You’ve hosted some world-class DJs. Any sets stand out?

Wow, there really have been so many. We’ve been lucky enough to have Jeff Mills play two incredible, forward-thinking sci-fi techno sets this year. Tom Middleton’s set at our April five-year anniversary party, as well as his set this past Saturday, were both absolutely fantastic. Every time Derrick Carter and Mark Farina play for us is always something special. And Satoshi Tomiie just kills it every time he’s played for us. Let’s not forget Josh Wink, whose last appearance was literally “bananas” and Miguel Migs, who brings a really sweet housey vibe to the room.

Basic NYC has supported a lot of local DJ talent. Who are some people to look out for?

New York is really brimming with new talent, and we’re always made it a point to give local DJs a chance to play alongside bigger names. Anybody who reads this and feels like they can add something special to the night should contact us.

You’re both married to each other. How has promoting your events, DJing and wearing so many hats affect your relationship?

It’s really made our relationship much stronger, because we get to work together in so many different ways. It’s very tough to go it alone as a DJ or doing events, but we’re very lucky that we both have such a love for what we’re doing. We both have to work hard to make everything go well and if we didn’t have that trust and support it would be much more difficult. And at the end of the day, we can always say we have each other.

If only we could get _____ to play for Basic NYC….

Prince!

What’s on tap for the rest of the year?

We’ve got a pretty jam-packed schedule for the rest of the year, with a whole bunch of our favorite DJs coming back to NYC. Derrick Carter, Mark Farina, Josh Wink, Marc Romboy, Miguel Migs, DJ T, DJ Dan and others will all be hitting Basic NYC events in the next two months. We’re also playing some pretty cool other parties with Steve Angello, Will.I.Am, Nic Fanciulli and Deadmau5. Every weekend has something fun in the works, which is great.

Gotta ask: How’d you get the names Sleepy & Boo?

They were both nicknames that our friends had created for us (for entirely different reasons). Everyone seemed to have some kind of nickname for Begoña, so eventually they all settled on Boo. Mike has a bit of a “sleepy” look to him and his friends tagged him with that when he first started DJing and it stuck. What can we say…friends do the darndest things sometimes!