The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen (UMRK) is a

recording studio A recording studio is a specialized facility for Sound recording and reproduction, recording and Audio mixing, mixing of instrumental or vocal musical performances, spoken words, and other sounds. They range in size from a small in-home proje ...

built in 1979 by musician, composer, songwriter, and bandleader

Frank Zappa Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American guitarist, composer, and bandleader. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed Rock music, rock, Pop music, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestra ...

at his home in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

. The home and recording studio was sold to

Lady Gaga Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (born March 28, 1986), known professionally as Lady Gaga, is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Known for her image reinventions and versatility across the entertainment industry, she is an influ ...

in 2016, and later purchased by Elizabeth Jagger in 2021.

History

built the studio in his 6,759-square-foot home in Laurel Canyon, completing it on September 1, 1979. The studio was custom designed by Rudi Breuer 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 engineered the four song debut EP by '' Missing Persons'' at UMRK. In 1982 two tracks from the EP were re-issued on the band's debut studio album, '' Spring Session M''. In July, 1980, Zappa began recording at the UMRK several songs that were eventually released on the album '' You Are What You Is''. Zappa would use 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''. In 2021 the house was sold to Elizabeth Jagger.

UMRK Mobile

The UMRK Mobile Studio was a remote recording bus purchased from

Mike Love Michael Edward Love (born March 15, 1941) is an American singer and songwriter who is one of the vocalists of the Beach Boys, of which he was an original member alongside his cousins Brian Wilson, Dennis Wilson, and Carl Wilson and their frien ...

of the

Beach Boys The Beach Boys are an American rock band formed in Hawthorne, California, in 1961. The group's original lineup consisted of brothers Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and their friend Al Jardine. Distinguished by thei ...

. 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 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, simultaneously) ...

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

MTV MTV (an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on ...

from the

Palladium Palladium is a chemical element; it has symbol Pd and atomic number 46. It is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal discovered in 1802 by the English chemist William Hyde Wollaston. He named it after the asteroid Pallas (formally 2 Pallas), ...

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" on the album '' Bongo Fury''. In the conclusion of Zappa's ''

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

'', 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
{{coord, 34.12267, -118.36818, type:landmark_globe:earth_region:US-CA, display=title Frank Zappa Lady Gaga Recording studios in California 1979 establishments in California