Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
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. The home and recording studio has been owned by Lady Gaga since 2016. History. Frank Zappa built the studio in his 6,759-square-foot home in Laurel Canyon, completing it on September 1, 1979. When the studio was first completed, Ken Scott recorded a 4-song EP with a new band, the resulting 4-song EP being titled with the band's brand-new name, "Missing Persons". In  1982, after signing the band, Capitol Records reissued the EP. The same year, the label included two tracks from that original EP, "Destination Unknown" and "Words", on the band's debut studio album, "Spring Session M". In July, 1980, Zappa began recording several songs that were eventually released on the album "You Are What You Is" at the UMRK. Zappa would utilize the studio to record and mix all subsequent studio releases. A mobile UMRK was used in the first cable TV / FM "Simulcast" for Zappa's Halloween show on October 31, 1981. The show was broadcast live on MTV  from the Palladium in New York City, with the audio-only portion broadcast over FM's new "Starfleet Radio" network. The broadcast was engineered from the UMRK remote recording truck by Zappa's longtime audio engineer Mark G. Pinske. 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". 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, 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".