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By every metric, the ascent of the Stone Roses was a rapid and extraordinary phenomenon. It took place over the course of 12 months. At the start of 1989, they were just a regional cause of excitement in Manchester, largely ignored by the traditional channels for indie music in Britain. Influential DJs did not champion them. The rock journalism had hardly mentioned their latest single, Elephant Stone. They were barely able to fill even a more modest London club such as Dingwalls. But by November they were massive. Their single Fools Gold had debuted on the charts at No 8 and their appearance was the main attraction on that week’s Top of the Pops – a scarcely conceivable situation for most alternative groups in the late 80s.

In hindsight, you can find numerous causes why the Stone Roses forged a unique trajectory, obviously attracting a much larger and broader audience than typically displayed an interest in indie music at the time. They were set apart by their appearance – which seemed to align them more to the expanding acid house scene – their confidently defiant attitude and the talent of the lead guitarist John Squire, unashamedly masterful in a world of fuzzy aggressive guitar playing.

But there was also the incontrovertible fact that the Stone Roses’ bass and drums swung in a way entirely different from anything else in British alt-rock at the time. There’s an argument 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 behind it certainly did not: you could dance to it in a way that you could not to the majority of the tracks that graced the decks at the era’s alternative clubs. You somehow got the impression that the percussionist Alan “Reni” Wren and the bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been brought up on sounds quite distinct from the standard alternative group influences, which was completely correct: Mani was a huge admirer of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his main inspirations were “good Motown-inspired and funk”.

The fluidity of his performance was the secret sauce behind the Stone Roses’ self-titled debut album: it’s him who drives the point when I Am the Resurrection shifts from soulful beat into loose-limbed funk, his jumping riffs that add bounce of Waterfall.

At times the sauce wasn’t so secret. On Fools Gold, the centerpiece of the song isn’t really the singing or Squire’s effect-laden guitar work, or even the breakbeat taken from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s writhing, driving bassline. When you recall She Bangs the Drums, the initial element that springs to mind is the bass line.

Indeed, in Mani’s view, when the Stone Roses stumbled artistically it was because they were not enough funky. Fools Gold’s underwhelming successor One Love was lackluster, he proposed, because it “needed more groove, it’s a somewhat rigid”. He was a strong defender of their frequently criticized second album, Second Coming but thought its weaknesses could have been rectified by removing some of the layers of hard rock-influenced guitar and “reverting to the groove”.

He likely had a point. Second Coming’s scattering of highlights usually coincide with the moments when Mounfield was truly given free rein – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the superb Begging You – while on its more sluggish songs, you can hear him metaphorically willing the band to pick up the pace. His playing on Tightrope is totally at odds with the lethargy of all other elements that’s happening on the song, while on Straight to the Man he’s clearly trying to inject a bit of energy into what’s otherwise just some nondescript country-rock – not a genre anyone would guess anyone was in a hurry to hear the Stone Roses attempt.

His efforts were unsuccessful: Wren and Squire left the band following Second Coming’s launch, and the Stone Roses imploded entirely after a disastrous headlining performance at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s next gig with Primal Scream had an impressively galvanising effect on a band in a slump after the cool response to 1994’s rock-y Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His sound became more echo-laden, weightier and increasingly distorted, but the swing that had provided the Stone Roses a unique edge was still in evidence – particularly on the laid-back funk of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his ability to bring his bass work to the fore. His percussive, mesmerising bass line is very much the highlight on the fantastic 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his playing on Kill All Hippies – like Swastika Eyes, a standout of Xtrmntr, undoubtedly the best album Primal Scream had produced since Screamadelica – is superb.

Consistently an friendly, clubbable presence – the writer John Robb once observed that the Stone Roses’ hauteur towards the press was always broken if Mani “became more relaxed” – he performed at the Stone Roses’ 2012 reunion concert at Manchester’s Heaton Park using a customised bass that bore the inscription “Super-Yob”, the nickname of Slade’s preposterously styled and constantly smiling axeman Dave Hill. This reunion did not lead to anything beyond a lengthy succession of hugely profitable concerts – a couple of fresh tracks put out by the reconstituted four-piece served only to prove that whatever magic had been present in 1989 had turned out impossible to rediscover nearly two decades later – and Mani discreetly declared his departure from music in 2021. He’d made his money and was now focused on angling, which furthermore provided “a great reason to go to the pub”.

Perhaps he thought he’d achieved plenty: he’d certainly made an impact. The Stone Roses were influential in a variety of manners. Oasis undoubtedly took note of their confident approach, while Britpop as a whole was shaped by a desire to transcend the usual commercial constraints of alternative music and attract a more general public, as the Roses had done. But their most obvious immediate effect was a sort of rhythmic shift: in the wake of their initial success, you suddenly encountered many alternative acts who wanted to make their audiences dance. That was Mani’s musical raison d’être. “It’s what the bass and drums are for, right?” he once averred. “That’s what they’re for.”