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By every measure, the rise of the Stone Roses was a rapid and extraordinary phenomenon. It unfolded over the course of one year. At the start of 1989, they were merely a regional source of buzz in Manchester, mostly ignored by the established channels for alternative rock in Britain. John Peel wasn’t a fan. The music press had barely covered their latest single, Elephant Stone. They were barely able to pack even a smaller London club such as Dingwalls. But by November they were massive. Their single Fools Gold had entered the charts at No 8 and their appearance was the main attraction on that week’s Top of the Pops – a barely conceivable situation for most indie bands in the end of the 1980s.

In hindsight, you can find numerous reasons why the Stone Roses forged a unique trajectory, clearly drawing in a far bigger and more diverse crowd than usually showed enthusiasm for alternative rock at the time. They were set apart by their appearance – which appeared to connect them more to the burgeoning acid house scene – their cockily belligerent demeanor and the talent of the lead guitarist John Squire, unashamedly masterful in a scene of fuzzy aggressive guitar playing.

But there was also the incontrovertible truth that the Stone Roses’ bass and drums swung in a way completely different from anything else in British alternative music at the time. There’s an point that the tune of Made of Stone bore a distinct resemblance to that of Primal Scream’s old C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the rhythm section were doing underneath it certainly did not: you could move to it in a way that you simply couldn’t to most of the tracks that graced the decks at the era’s indie discos. You somehow felt that the drummer Alan “Reni” Wren and the bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been raised on sounds quite distinct from the standard indie band influences, which was absolutely correct: Mani was a massive fan of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his main inspirations were “good northern soul and funk”.

The fluidity of his performance was the secret sauce behind the Stone Roses’ eponymous first record: it’s him who drives the moment when I Am the Resurrection transitions from soulful beat into loose-limbed funk, his jumping riffs that put a spring in the step of Waterfall.

At times the ingredient was quite obvious. On Fools Gold, the focal point of the song is not the vocal melody or Squire’s effect-laden guitar work, or even the breakbeat borrowed from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s writhing, driving bassline. When you recall She Bangs the Drums, the first thing that springs to mind is the low-end melody.

In fact, in Mani’s view, when the Stone Roses stumbled musically it was because they were not enough funky. Fools Gold’s disappointing successor One Love was lackluster, he suggested, because it “could have swung, it’s a little bit rigid”. He was a strong supporter of their frequently criticized second album, Second Coming but believed its weaknesses might have been fixed by cutting some of the overdubs of Led Zeppelin-inspired guitar and “reverting to the groove”.

He likely had a valid argument. Second Coming’s scattering of standout tracks often occur during the instances when Mounfield was truly allowed to let rip – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the superb Begging You – while on its more turgid songs, you can sense him metaphorically urging the band to pick up the pace. His playing on Tightrope is completely at odds with the listlessness of everything else that’s going on on the song, while on Straight to the Man he’s clearly trying to add a some pep into what’s otherwise some unremarkable folk-rock – not a style one suspects listeners was in a hurry to hear the Stone Roses attempt.

His attempts were unsuccessful: Wren and Squire left the band in the wake of Second Coming’s launch, and the Stone Roses imploded entirely after a catastrophic top-billed performance at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s next gig with Primal Scream had an impressively energising impact on a band in a slump after the cool reception to 1994’s rock-y Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His tone became dubbier, heavier and increasingly fuzzy, but the swing that had provided the Stone Roses a unique edge was still present – especially on the low-slung funk of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his ability to push his bass work to the fore. His popping, hypnotic low-end pattern is very much the star turn on the brilliant 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his playing on Kill All Hippies – like Swastika Eyes, a highlight of Xtrmntr, undoubtedly the finest album Primal Scream had produced since Screamadelica – is magnificent.

Always an friendly, clubbable presence – the author John Robb once observed that the Stone Roses’ aloofness towards the press was always broken if Mani “became more relaxed” – he performed at the Stone Roses’ 2012 comeback show at Manchester’s Heaton Park using a personalised bass that bore the legend “Super-Yob”, the moniker of Slade’s preposterously coiffured and permanently grinning guitarist Dave Hill. This reunion did not lead to anything more than a lengthy succession of hugely profitable concerts – a couple of new tracks released by the reformed quartet only demonstrated that whatever magic had existed in 1989 had turned out unattainable to rediscover 18 years on – and Mani discreetly announced his departure from music in 2021. He’d made his money and was now focused on fly-fishing, which additionally provided “a good excuse to go to the pub”.

Maybe he thought he’d done enough: he’d definitely left a mark. The Stone Roses were influential in a variety of manners. Oasis certainly observed their swaggering approach, while Britpop as a whole was shaped by a desire to break the standard market limitations of alternative music and reach a more general public, as the Roses had achieved. But their most obvious direct influence was a kind of rhythmic shift: following their initial success, you suddenly couldn’t move for alternative acts who wanted to make their audiences move. That was Mani’s musical raison d’être. “It’s what the rhythm section are for, right?” he once averred. “That’s what they’re for.”