‘SuperCW’ hosts Pow Wow Hawaii fundraiser

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The Knocks will perform at a bash put on by Christa Wittmier, who is wrapping up her career as a blogger. --Courtesy photo

Honolulu blogger Christa Wittmier, an effervescent woman-about-town, has commented on and documented the young social scene since 1997, first at Myspace.com and then at SuperCW.com. She was one of the first to photoblog parties in the islands, and she’s accumulating thousands of “followers,” leading people to parties all over Honolulu.

But that part of her life is coming to an end, and in a big way. Let’s set aside the Mayan calendar’s prediction of the end of the world today because it’s also Wittmier’s 37th birthday, and she’s decided to move on.

Wittmier’s celebrating the transition by throwing a bash at the Republik, featuring The Knocks, a music act that she enthusiastically calls “the best thing since Passion Pit.”

“The Knocks have been my favorite band all year,” she said. “They’re a really talented production team.”

So talented, in fact, that the duo of Ben “B-Roc” Ruttner and James “Jpatt” Patterson have just started recording their major-label debut for the Universal Music Group out of their HeavyRoc Music studio in their home base of New York City.

Calling from New York from his studio on Dec. 6, Ruttner said, “We’re just making headway into the album, because we’ve been on tour most of the year.”

THE KNOCKS have been around the world as both a band and DJs, playing an eclectic set of dance tunes that include their breakout “Make It Better,” “Brightside,” “Dancing with the DJ” and “Rest of Your Life.” And 2012 could not end on a better note for them, as Ruttner and Patterson will be the official DJs for MTV’s New Year’s Eve street party in Times Square.

The two initially met through friends in college, “both of us doing hip-hop production,” Ruttner said. “We started off as roommates, helping each other out. We found out we were on the same wavelength — I grew up in DJ culture, so I’m more of a beat guy, while James is more of a musician.”

After making themselves known in the Big Apple’s club culture, Ruttner and a couple of other people started HeavyRoc.

“At the beginning James and I were more about being producers,” he said. They got their name out with successful remixes of Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl,” Britney Spears’ “3″ and a couple for the rising U.K. act Marina & the Diamonds.

But now it’s time for The Knocks to step it up.

“After making our name in dance, I think our album will be a little more grown up, more production driven,” Ruttner said. “We’ll have a lot more featured vocalists and, as producers, work more with songwriters. We plan to put out a song in the spring and hope to have the whole album out by the summer.”

RUTTNER thanks Wittmier for helping get The Knocks to DJ at tonight’s party.

“You didn’t have to pull our legs to play Hawaii,” he said. “Even though we’ll just be DJ’ing, it’s a good start, and I hope we can come back with our band to do a full show.”

And Wittmier is glad she was able to oblige. “When I first came here in my mid-20s when I was in the Navy, all I wanted to do was to stay here, and because of my outgoing personality, I wanted to be everywhere in Honolulu. My start in blogging on the Internet, and the explosion of social media, just amplified my presence.”

She’s the marketing and events director of wine and liquor distributor Young’s Market Co. of Hawaii.

“I want to focus on my job at Young’s Market and a future media project I have in the works,” Wittmier said. “Even though I feel kind of sad and nostalgic about winding down my writing, I also feel kind of relieved. I’ve been waiting for someone to step up, and I think there are a number of writers out there that have done so. Basically, I don’t have the time and energy to do it, and the kind of job I have now is one I can do until I’m an old lady.”

WITTMIER REMAINS enthusiastic about one labor of love: as the volunteer marketing director for an organization she dearly loves, Pow Wow Hawaii.

“The Last Ever” is a final-push fundraiser for the internationally recognized street art festival, which started here in 2011.

“I went to the first one in Hong Kong (in 2010), and gallery owner Josh Liner from New York and I hit it off,” Wittmier said. “He said, ‘I know you’re from Hawaii, can we bring the next one out there?’ So we worked it out.”

At the first Pow Wow Hawaii, 16 international artists participated, from locations including France, Australia and Hong Kong. Last year, 40 artists joined in.

Expect the number of guest artists to grow to 50 or so in 2013, said founder and organizer Jasper Wong.

Combine that with local artists, and around 70 people will once again be roaming the small-business streets of Kakaako displaying their colorful graffiti-based art on makeshift “canvases.”

Starting in mid-February, “we want to cover Kakaako,” Wong said. “We’ll paint some new murals and maybe paint over some others. And this year, in addition to our year-round art school for kids, we’ll be adding a music portion, so it should make for an exciting combination of live painting and DJ’ing.”

Wittmier said: “We just need to raise that last bit of money. We’ve already got the flights booked, and we just need additional funds for paint, van rentals and gas.

“I feel so lucky to be involved with Pow Wow Hawaii,” she said. “It means more to my life than anything else right now.”