The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen (UMRK) is a recording studio built in 1979 by musician, composer, songwriter, and bandleader Frank Zappa at his home in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

. The home and recording studio has been owned by

Lady Gaga Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta ( ; born March 28, 1986), known professionally as Lady Gaga, is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She is known for her image reinventions and musical versatility. Gaga began performing as a teenag ...

since 2016.

History

Frank Zappa built the studio in his 6,759-square-foot home in

Laurel Canyon Laurel Canyon is a mountainous neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills region of the Santa Monica Mountains, within the Hollywood Hills West district of Los Angeles, California. The main thoroughfare of Laurel Canyon Boulevard connects the neighb ...

, completing it on September 1, 1979. The studio was custom designed by Rudy Brewer with input from Zappa and his technical staff. The estimated construction costs ranged between $1.5 and $3.5 million. Soon after the studio was completed,

Ken Scott Ken Scott (born 20 April 1947) is a British record producer and engineer known for being one of the five main engineers for the Beatles, as well as engineering Elton John, Pink Floyd, Procol Harum, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Duran Duran, the Jeff B ...

engineered the four song debut EP by ''

Missing Persons A missing person is a person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed as their location and condition are unknown. A person may go missing through a voluntary disappearance, or else due to an accident, crime, de ...

'' at UMRK. In 1982 two tracks from the EP were re-issued on the band's debut studio album, ''

Spring Session M ''Spring Session M'' is the debut studio album by American new wave band Missing Persons. It was released on October 8, 1982 by Capitol Records. The title of the album is an anagram of the band's name. Produced by Ken Scott with the songs writ ...

''. In July, 1980, Zappa began recording at the UMRK several songs that were eventually released on the album ''

You Are What You Is ''You Are What You Is'' is a 1981 double album by American musician Frank Zappa. His 34th album, it consists of three musical suites which encompass pop, doo-wop, jazz, hard rock, reggae, soul, blues, new wave and country. The album's lyri ...

''. Zappa would utilize the studio regularly until his death in 1993. In 2016, Lady Gaga purchased the Zappa homestead, including the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen. It is one of the studios she used for the recording of her sixth album, ''

Chromatica ''Chromatica'' is the sixth studio album by American singer Lady Gaga, released on May 29, 2020, by Interscope Records and subsidiary Streamline. Gaga supervised the production with longtime collaborator BloodPop and a variety of other produc ...

''.

UMRK Mobile

The UMRK Mobile Studio was a

remote recording Remote recording, also known as location recording, is the act of making a high-quality complex audio recording of a live concert performance, or any other location recording that uses multitrack recording techniques outside of a recording studio. ...

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

purchased from

Mike Love Michael Edward Love (born March 15, 1941) is an American singer and songwriter who co-founded the Beach Boys with his cousins Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson and their friend Al Jardine. Characterized by his nasal tenor and occasional bas ...

of the

Beach Boys A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc shell ...

. The studio bus needed extensive repairs and upgrades after years of sitting idle at Love's home. The mobile studio was used in the first cable TV / FM "

Simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simulta ...

" for Zappa's Halloween show on October 31, 1981. The show was broadcast live on MTV from the

Palladium Palladium is a chemical element with the symbol Pd and atomic number 46. It is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal discovered in 1803 by the English chemist William Hyde Wollaston. He named it after the asteroid Pallas, which was itself na ...

in New York City, with the audio-only portion broadcast over FM's new "Starfleet Radio" network. The broadcast was engineered from the UMRK bus by Zappa's longtime audio engineer Mark G. Pinske.

References in music

The first known mention of "Utility Muffin Research Kitchen" was in the 1975 song "

Muffin Man "The Muffin Man" is a traditional nursery rhyme, children's song, or children's game of English origin. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 7922. The man in question, who lived on Drury Lane in London, may have been a man whose professi ...

" on the album ''

Bongo Fury ''Bongo Fury'' is a collaborative album by American artists Frank Zappa and the Mothers, with Captain Beefheart, released in October 1975. The live portions were recorded on May 20 and 21, 1975, at the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin, Te ...

''. In the conclusion of Zappa's ''

Joe's Garage ''Joe's Garage'' is a three-part rock opera recorded by American musician Frank Zappa in September and November 1979. Originally released as two separate studio albums on Zappa Records, the project was later remastered and reissued as a tripl ...

'', Joe, the protagonist, gives in to conformity and gets a job on the assembly line at the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen; the narration describing his job there is nearly identical to the opening narration from "Muffin Man".

References

External links

Dweezil Zappa: 64-bit Computing & The Frank Zappa Archive - soundonsound.com
Frank Zappa Lady Gaga Recording studios in California 1979 establishments in California {{recording-studio-stub