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By every metric, the ascent of the Stone Roses was a rapid and remarkable thing. It took place over the course of 12 months. At the start of 1989, they were merely a regional source of buzz in Manchester, largely ignored by the established channels for alternative rock in Britain. Influential DJs did not champion them. The rock journalism had barely covered their most recent single, Elephant Stone. They were struggling to pack even a more modest London venue such as Dingwalls. But by November they were massive. Their single Fools Gold had debuted on the charts at No 8 and their performance was the big draw on that week’s Top of the Pops – a scarcely imaginable state of affairs for most alternative groups in the late 80s.

In hindsight, you can identify numerous reasons why the Stone Roses cut such an extraordinary path, clearly attracting a far bigger and broader audience than typically displayed an interest in indie music at the time. They were distinguished by their look – which seemed to align them more to the burgeoning dance music movement – their confidently defiant demeanor and the talent of the lead guitarist John Squire, openly masterful in a world of distorted aggressive guitar playing.

But there was also the incontrovertible truth that the Stone Roses’ rhythm section grooved in a way completely unlike anything else in British alt-rock at the time. There’s an point that the tune of Made of Stone sounded quite similar to that of Primal Scream’s early C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the rhythm section were doing underneath it really didn’t: you could dance to it in a way that you simply couldn’t to the majority of the songs that graced the turntables at the era’s alternative clubs. You somehow got the impression that the drummer Alan “Reni” Wren and the bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been raised on music quite distinct from the usual alternative group influences, which was absolutely right: Mani was a huge admirer of the Byrds’ low-end maestro Chris Hillman but his guiding lights were “good Motown-inspired and funk”.

The fluidity of his playing was the secret sauce behind the Stone Roses’ self-titled first record: it’s Mani who drives the point when I Am the Resurrection shifts from soulful beat into loose-limbed groove, his octave-leaping lines that put a spring in the step of Waterfall.

Sometimes the sauce was quite obvious. On Fools Gold, the centerpiece of the song isn’t really the singing or Squire’s wah-pedal-heavy playing, 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 low-end melody.

Indeed, in Mani’s opinion, when the Stone Roses went wrong artistically it was because they were not enough groovy. Fools Gold’s disappointing follow-up One Love was lackluster, he proposed, because it “could have swung, it’s a little bit stiff”. He was a staunch defender of their oft-dismissed second album, Second Coming but thought its weaknesses might have been fixed by removing some of the overdubs of Led Zeppelin-inspired guitar and “returning to the rhythm”.

He likely had a valid argument. Second Coming’s handful of highlights often coincide with the instances when Mounfield was really allowed to let rip – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the excellent Begging You – while on its more turgid songs, you can sense him figuratively willing the band to pick up the pace. His performance on Tightrope is totally at odds with the lethargy of all other elements that’s happening on the track, while on Straight to the Man he’s clearly attempting to inject a some energy into what’s otherwise some nondescript folk-rock – not a genre anyone would guess anyone was in a rush to hear the Stone Roses give a try.

His efforts were in vain: Wren and Squire left the band following Second Coming’s launch, and the Stone Roses collapsed entirely after a catastrophic top-billed set at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s next gig with Primal Scream had an remarkably galvanising effect on a band in a decline after the tepid response to 1994’s rock-y Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His tone became more echo-laden, heavier and more distorted, but the swing that had provided the Stone Roses a unique edge was still present – particularly on the low-slung rhythm of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his skill to push his playing to the front. His popping, hypnotic bass line is certainly the star turn on the brilliant 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his playing on Kill All Hippies – like Swastika Eyes, a standout of Xtrmntr, easily the best album Primal Scream had made since Screamadelica – is superb.

Consistently an affable, sociable figure – the writer John Robb once noted that the Stone Roses’ hauteur towards the media was invariably punctured if Mani “let his guard down” – he took the stage at the Stone Roses’ 2012 reunion concert at Manchester’s Heaton Park playing a customised bass that displayed the inscription “Super-Yob”, the moniker of Slade’s preposterously coiffured and constantly grinning axeman Dave Hill. This reunion did not lead to anything more than a lengthy series of hugely profitable gigs – a couple of fresh tracks released by the reconstituted quartet served only to prove that any spark had existed in 1989 had turned out unattainable to recapture nearly two decades later – and Mani quietly announced his retirement in 2021. He’d earned his fortune and was now more concerned with angling, which furthermore offered “a great excuse to go to the pub”.

Maybe he felt he’d achieved plenty: he’d certainly left a mark. The Stone Roses were seminal in a variety of ways. Oasis certainly took note of their swaggering approach, while Britpop as a movement was informed by a desire to transcend the usual market limitations of indie rock and reach a wider general public, as the Roses had done. But their clearest immediate influence was a sort of rhythmic shift: in the wake of their initial success, you suddenly couldn’t move for indie bands who aimed to make their fans move. That was Mani’s artistic raison d’être. “It’s what the bass and drums are for, aren’t they?” he once averred. “That’s what they’re for.”