Chinook Jargon in our lives: Wake Ooloo, a band
Crazy, man!
Image credit: Amazon, of all places
I was listening to Irwin Chusid’s always excellent radio show on WFMU 91.1 freeform radio out of New Jersey. (A habit I picked up 41 years ago.)
And Irwin announced that the track he had just played was by Wake Ooloo!
Apparently they’re a spinoff of The Feelies, who were a band I in fact saw perform at my school, Columbia University, back in the mid-1980s.
With The Trypes, as I recall.
(Not to go too tangential, but Feelies drummer Anton Fier founded the wonderful Golden Palominos.)
Small world, eh!
I feel 95% sure that Wake Ooloo is Chinuk Wawa, meaning “not hungry”. Making the world even smaller. However, having rock & roll attitudes and such, the band members told one interviewer the following in 1996:
Just in case you’re wondering, “Wake” refers to a type of herb and “Ooloo” is Eskimo for “knive” (and supposedly means “owl” in Indian). At least, that’s what they told me…
I suspect the band was joking about “wake & bake” 😁
