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Michael McKinney understands the cultural importance of Kreayshawn’s “Gucci Gucci.”
Over the past decade-plus, Doris Woo built up a singular reputation as DJ Bus Replacement Service. Behind the decks, she practiced a highly specific form of alchemy: magic tricks and stand-up bits aimed straight at the Dr. Demento crowd, finding time for gut-twisting hardcore, why-not novelty records, and all manner of truly disorienting blends, all the while rocking a Kim Jong Un mask. Her strongest material is, not coincidentally, her most out-there: her February 2018 DJ mix ripped live from the decks in Sheffield is just as blood-boiling as it was seven years ago, a car-crash of Eurodance and Mortal Kombat and meringue and donk and deranged voicemails and so much more. Plenty of DJs make hay with million-genre mixing, but Woo does it with an obvious glee, each blend landing like a dare or an inside joke.
All that said, after spending years performing gut-busting dancefloor routines, Woo has reconsidered her relationship with DJing. When we spoke—in November of 2023—she was calling live from the U.S. pickleball nationals in Dallas, a setting that was characteristically chaotic and awfully apt. After a decade-plus behind the decks, she’s hanging up the mask—at least for a bit. She’s since grabbed a paddle (and gone on to win plenty of tournaments), and the DJ-turned-pickleballer-turned-DJ-plus-pickleballer couldn’t be happier about it. (Since this conversation, she’s returned to DJing here and there.) Over the roar of the crowd, we caught up with DJ Bus Replacement Service as she moved between careers and worlds, digging into her relationship to hardcore dance music, Monty Python and The Annoying Music Show, the importance of opting out, and so much more.
(This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.)