Niko Stratis

Toronto

Freelance Writer at Freelance

I'm not here anymore, but you can pre-order my book https://t.co/GtaAzS2Znu

Articles

Something old, something new — West End Phoenix

2 weeks ago | westendphoenix.com | Niko Stratis

FROM APRIL/MAY 2025 ISSUE OF WEST END PHOENIXAndréa Lalonde’s Nouveau Riche Vintage is a place where people go to discover who they are and what their clothes might help defineAt 15 Adrian Ave., off the parking lot around the back of a weathered brick building just north of Dupont and Symington, is a worn steel door with a heart taped to it. Inside is Nouveau Riche Vintage.
The Ballad of Neko and Niko

3 weeks ago | thewalrus.ca | Niko Stratis

M y name, the one given to me by my parents when I was born, was an accident. Initially, they were going to name me Spencer, a decision they thankfully forgot on the way to the hospital to bring me into the world. They named me ____ and gave me the middle name Stanley, after my grandfather. As they were writing it down, they realized at the last minute that my initials would spell ASS, and that felt like setting me up for failure.
Got To Be Something Better Than In The Middle

1 month ago | defector.com | Niko Stratis

The following is excerpted from a chapter of The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman, by Niko Stratis. The book is available for purchase now. The first time I ever remember hearing the Wallflowers, I was covered in blood, moldy produce, and garbage.
With posthumous album, SOPHIE gets one final goodbye

Sep 26, 2024 | xtramagazine.com | Niko Stratis

If death could ever hope to court transcendence, it is in moments like these. On Jan. 30, 2021, songwriter, music producer, DJ, visionary avant-pop artist SOPHIE slipped and fell to her death on a rooftop in Athens while trying to catch sight of the full moon as it hung in the Grecian sky.
I've got my spine, I've got my Orange Crush

Jul 30, 2024 | anxietyshark.ca | Niko Stratis

Last Monday afternoon, as I went to walk Bowie in the humidified heat of an ungodly Toronto summer, as I put an XXL shirt on over my work from home uniform of choice — less than clean bike shorts and sports bra — and grabbed the door handle to leave air conditioning for a mass of heat and moisture it came back to me. A memory held in the body that buckled me over like a door stuck on the jamb and suddenly I couldn’t stand up straight or move comfortably without intense pain.
The potential hiding in space

Jul 16, 2024 | anxietyshark.ca | Niko Stratis

When I was a kid, I had a wallpaper trim creating a border in the centre of the otherwise blue walls of my bedroom. I’m sure there’s a proper term for this kind of wallpaper division, and if there is please tell me as I’m clearly just typing through it and not googling. I kind of, on principle, look up facts less these days unless I have to in order to maintain my journalistic integrity. This is not one of those times.
Playlist of desire

Jul 12, 2024 | anxietyshark.ca | Niko Stratis

Every time I write the intro to an essay lately I feel I am at my most John Wick, all tired and hunched over. Saying yeah, I’m thinking I’m back in my most charming monotone. I submitted the revisions on my book, and this is what has made it hard for me to think about writing essays for a newsletter. I was asked to make the book a little longer, I took that as a challenge instead of a note and wrote two new essays for it, plus a secret third one. So three, I guess, for those who passed math.
A conversation with Jael Holzman of Ekko Astral

Jul 3, 2024 | anxietyshark.ca | Niko Stratis

Hey everyone. Trying something new or this week, I took an opportunity to have a long chat with journalist and musician Jael Holzman, who alongside her incredible band Ekko Astral, just got off the road touring with Ted Leo and the Pharmacists and Idles. I wrote a little about their new record Pink Balloons here. Jael and I chatted a lot about journalism, reporting on trans lives, music, the importance of culture and more.
Crying and getting pulled over in a car listening to Thin Lizzy with Ted Leo on Apple Podcasts

Jun 19, 2024 | podcasts.apple.com | Niko Stratis

Friends. We. Are. BACK. I say that a lot. It remains true. Today, I'm happy to bring you my conversation with Ted Leo! We talk about Tolkien-punk, Alex Lifeson, the time Ted Leo had his front licene plates stolen and a beautiful story about getting pulled over by the cops and crying to Thin Lizzy. You can find Ted Leo on Twitter and Instagram, Patreon and on his website, tedleo.comYou can find me, Niko Stratis, on all social media platforms @ Niko Stratis. I tend to use Twitter the most, or m...
1995: Elliott Smith, Elliott Smith — SIXTYEIGHT2OHFIVE

Jun 18, 2024 | 68to05.com | Hanif Abdurraqib |Niko Stratis

By Niko StratisThere’s a coffee table book I keep on the shelf, a plastic shelled hardcover collection of photos by Autumn DeWilde highlighting a favourite subject of hers. In many of them, he is wearing those outfits that feel like costumes in press clippings and album covers. He’s wearing the T shirt from the Either/Or cover, or the faded grey New Balance sweater from the cover of Figure 8. Most striking of all, in many of the memories preserved here, Elliott Smith is smiling.