Eleven Degrees

Eleven Degrees, who also printed their name as 11°, were a rock group built around the songwriting partnership of Strat Andriotis and N. McGrory. Andriotis, a guitarist, was born in Elefsina, Greece, in 1963 and came to Hamilton with his family at the age of four. He started on classical piano and spent years playing along with Cream and Jimi Hendrix records. At seventeen he bought Miles Davis's In a Silent Way, and it turned him toward jazz, though rock never left his playing.

In 1988 the band released two singles on Roto Noto Records, the label founded by Hamilton producer and songwriter Randall Cousins, with an office on Erin Avenue in Hamilton and a post office box in Niagara Falls, New York. Andriotis and McGrory wrote all four songs, Cousins's Alleged Iguana published them, and Andriotis produced. The first single paired 'Two of Us' with 'Sunrise (Don't Mind the Pain)'. Bob Doidge, who had co-founded Hamilton's Grant Avenue Studio and owned it since 1985, engineered both sides, with Mike Northcott joining him on 'Sunrise'. On the second single, 'Colour My Life' backed with 'I Know', Doidge moved up to co-producer on the A-side. These two singles are the only Eleven Degrees records known.

In the early 1990s Andriotis began recording with pianist Tom Carney, and his debut album, First, followed in 1995. His records since have mixed jazz with rock and classical writing, a style he calls sweet and sour. He went back to Bob Doidge for Liars Incorporated, recorded at Grant Avenue Studio, and it won three Hamilton Music Awards in 2015, for Instrumental Record, Classical Composition and Classical Recording of the Year. Along the way he has played and recorded with Albert Bouchard of Blue Öyster Cult, Tony Levin, Jim Gilmour of Saga, Gonzalo Rubalcaba and Jerry Goodman of the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Exits followed on Dekatria Records in 2025, and on September 4, 2026 he released The Wolf Sleeps Alone, a trio album with bassist Vince Di Francesco and drummer Alex Karcza. His biography still lists Eleven Degrees among the groups he has recorded with.

-Robert Williston