When Rosalind Main and her dad Graham decided to start a radio programme about Edinburgh’s lost music venues, they had plenty of material to play with. As an artist, model and researcher steeped in the local scene, Rosalind had been spoon-fed war stories of gigs past by her old man. The fact that Graham’s first-hand experience came not just from attending shows as a music-hungry teen dating back to the 1970s, but playing some of them too, as bass player with Auld Reekie’s premier art-punk combo Fire Engines.

The result is Borrowed Nostalgia, a mix of historical inquiry, anecdotes and top tunes associated with whichever venue is being investigated. ‘Growing up with dad’s music was really important,’ says Rosalind. ‘Driving round, he would point out places where he’d seen things; so I’d be listening to David Bowie in the car, and dad would point out the Empire Theatre, which is now the Festival Theatre, where Bowie played twice.’

The title of Borrowed Nostalgia comes from a line in ‘Losing My Edge’, LCD Soundsystem’s ironic 2002 pastiche of too-cool-for-school hipsters that finds James Murphy talking about ‘borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered 80s.’ Murphy’s closing litany of uber-cool artists even namechecks Fire Engines. Now four episodes in, the duo have looked at Leith Theatre, Tiffany’s nightclub, Empire Theatre and Caley Picture House. With the first having recently opened up again, the second demolished and flats built in its place, the third long re-established as a theatrical institution, and the fourth now a Wetherspoon, this selection to date is a marker of the loss or revival of Edinburgh venues across generations.

‘It’s been really enlightening for me,’ says Graham. ‘I’ve been looking at a lot of books about the architecture of the buildings, and it’s interesting what’s going on in the city just now because there’s a lot of building happening. It seems to be expanding but culturally it’s contracting.’ While this makes it even more vital that lost spaces are historicised, and their social and artistic significance celebrated, it’s not all doom and gloom. ‘We’re going to be covering venues that still exist, like The Liquid Room and Summerhall, which have their own histories,’ Rosalind adds. ‘Borrowed Nostalgia is a melting pot of past, present and future, and a reminder that there’s plenty of things going on in Edinburgh all year round.’

New episodes of Borrowed Nostalgia are available every second Monday of the month.