You can helpexpand this article with text translated fromthe corresponding article in German. (November 2016)Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the German article. Machine translation, likeDeepL orGoogle Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consideradding a topic to this template: there are already 2,374 articles in themain category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. Youmust providecopyright attribution in theedit summary accompanying your translation by providing aninterlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary isContent in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Utility Muffin Research Kitchen]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template{{Translated|de|Utility Muffin Research Kitchen}} to thetalk page. For more guidance, seeWikipedia:Translation.

TheUtility Muffin Research Kitchen (UMRK) is arecording studio built in 1979 by musician, composer, songwriter, and bandleaderFrank Zappa at his home inLos Angeles, California. The home and recording studio was sold toLady Gaga in 2016, and later purchased byElizabeth Jagger in 2021.

Frank Zappa built the studio in his 6,759-square-foot home inLaurel 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.^[1]

Soon after the studio was completed,Ken Scott engineered the four song debut EP byMissing Persons at UMRK.^[2] 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 albumYou Are What You Is.^[1] Zappa would use the studio regularly until his death in 1993.

In 2016, Lady Gaga purchased the Zappa homestead,^[3] including the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen. It is one of the studios she used for the recording of her sixth album,Chromatica.^[4] In 2021 the house was sold toElizabeth Jagger.

The UMRK Mobile Studio was aremote recordingbus purchased fromMike Love of theBeach Boys. The studio bus needed extensive repairs and upgrades after years of sitting idle at Love's home.^[1] The mobile studio was used in the first cable TV / FM "Simulcast" for Zappa's Halloween show on October 31, 1981. The show was broadcast live onMTV from thePalladium 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.

The first known mention of "Utility Muffin Research Kitchen" was in the 1975 song "Muffin Man" on the albumBongo Fury.

In the conclusion of Zappa'sJoe's Garage, 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".

• Dweezil Zappa: 64-bit Computing & The Frank Zappa Archive - soundonsound.com

34°07′22″N118°22′05″W / 34.12267°N 118.36818°W /34.12267; -118.36818

• Frank Zappa
• Lady Gaga
• Recording studios in California
• 1979 establishments in California

• Pages using gadget WikiMiniAtlas
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles needing translation from German Wikipedia
• Coordinates on Wikidata