Much like Randy Newman, Sam Spiegel loves LA. But this is 2019, not 1983, and Spiegel has his own singular take on what makes Los Angeles, well, Los Angeles. That vision is all over “Wishin’,” Spiegel’s new song beautifully capturing the spirit of the city and the summer.
“‘Wishin’’ is a song that I wrote with Bipolar Sunshine a couple of years ago. I loved the feeling on it and the song’s emotionality, despite it being a baile funk banger,” Spiegel says of the tune. “When it came time to make a video, I teamed up with Aya Tanimura and we decided to drive around Los Angeles—a city that we both love—and collect wishes from people all over the city, filming them on our Super 8 cameras. The resulting video ended up feeling like a love letter to our city through the wishes and dreams of its inhabitants.”
Spiegel and Tanimura illustrate that spirit with some famous friends popping in among the faces in the video to share their very own LA wishes, including actors Nick Kroll and Johnny Knoxville.
“When all is lost, you lose focus on the things that mean the most to you. I just had to realize what I needed,” British singer Bipolar Sunshine adds of the track.
The video is officially launching with a gallery show at Contact Photo Lab (618 Moulton Ave, Los Angeles, CA). The show will feature prints from the video (for sale) as well as Spiegel rocking the turntables as the evening’s DJ. It’s all going down August 2 at 7 p.m.
Spiegel is also heading up a social media challenge in conjunction with the video, asking people to write down their wishes and take photos with them, then share with the hashtag #wishinchallenge. Select fans will have their wishes granted by Spiegel himself.
