PORTLAND, Maine — Impossibly tall and skeletally thin, you’d see him marching down the city’s brick sidewalks at great speed with a distinctive, leaned-back gait, as if he were bending to a perpetual stiff headwind.
Southpaw, he played ferocious guitar — upsidedown and backwards, Jimi Hendrix style — in multiple Maine bands including Skull 69, Rodeo Jesus, The Donner Party and Cowgirls of the Damned.
A sideways-witted prankster, he inhabited Portland stages and barstools for decades, enduring, unchanged and undomesticated, while the city morphed around him, from gritty seaport to gleaming tourist destination.
But now, like the grimy old days from whence he came, he’s gone, too.
Pioneering Maine punk rock guitarist Bob Farrington — better known as Skummy Man — died Tuesday morning at a Massachusetts hospital after a short illness. He was 70.
“He was always there. I thought he could never die,” said Jim Rand, bandmate from Farrington’s best-known and longest-enduring ensemble, Big Meat Hammer. “It’s the end of an era.”
Born and raised in Westbrook, the son of a country and western guitarist, Farrington helped establish Portland’s punk rock scene in the early 1980s before taking off for the west coast for a few years. Upon his return, Farrington, Rand and frontman Jordan Krantz formed Big Meat Hammer in 1990.
Since then, the band has played hundreds of shows — on huge stages and dingy DIY basements — from New York City to Portland to Orono.
“He was definitely a musical genius,” Rand, also a guitarist, said. “I played rhythm and he played lead and he’d tell me not to bother looking over at what he was playing because I wouldn’t be able to figure it out, anyway.”
Farrington also built his own, highly personalized guitars and amplifiers from scratch.
In addition to his musical talent, Rand will remember Farrington’s unique sense of humor. Famous for his waist-length hair, Farrington had it all cut off at one point but still managed to keep his radical, new look a secret.
“He somehow attached all of it to the back of his hat,” Rand said. “It looked like he still had long hair.”
Then, at the perfect, most dramatic point in the band’s set that night, Farrington whipped his hat off, taking all his hair with it.
“We were stunned,” Rand said, still amazed by the move years later.
Another Portland bandmate, Lenny Smith, said Farrington’s punk-rocking longevity made him a role model for younger, non-conforming Maine musicians.
“He was older, wiser and definitely more twisted in his perspective,” Smith said. “He showed people how to be true to yourself — not just what the world wants you to be. That’s the true punk rock aesthetic.”
Lakisha Green, Farrington’s daughter, said he got the name “Skummy Man” while crashing on a bandmate’s couch years ago, after a sweaty gig. The bandmate’s son walked by and said, “You smell scummy, man.”
The name stuck. Farrington altered the spelling and relished it.
Green was 20 minutes from the hospital Tuesday morning when nurses called to tell her Farrington had died. Heartbroken, Green spent time with his body when she arrived, brushing his long gray hair, twisting it into a tight braid.
She then snipped it off.
“I’m going to keep it, for me,” she said. “But I’m going to have him cremated and then pass out vials of ashes to all his friends.”
There will be plenty of takers and Green plans to carry out her plan sometime this winter or spring at a fundraising memorial show in Portland. The date hasn’t been set yet but the money will go to help pay Farrington’s considerable medical bills and funeral costs.
Green said that despite his imposing, leather-clad looks, she’ll remember her father as a warm, supportive presence in her life. Though often physically absent while she was growing up, she said Farrington always kept in touch, writing long, loving letters so she would know how much she meant to him.
“He knew how to love unconditionally,” Green said. “He was an angel disguised as a punk rocker.”