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By every measure, the rise of the Stone Roses was a rapid and remarkable thing. It unfolded over the course of 12 months. At the beginning of 1989, they were just a regional source of buzz in Manchester, mostly overlooked by the established channels for alternative rock in Britain. John Peel wasn’t a fan. The rock journalism had hardly covered their latest single, Elephant Stone. They were barely able to pack even a smaller London venue 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 imaginable state of affairs for the majority of alternative groups in the late 80s.

In retrospect, you can find numerous causes why the Stone Roses forged a unique trajectory, obviously drawing in a much larger and broader audience than usually showed enthusiasm for alternative rock at the time. They were distinguished by their appearance – which seemed to align them more to the burgeoning acid house scene – their confidently defiant attitude and the skill of the guitarist John Squire, openly masterful in a scene of fuzzy aggressive guitar playing.

But there was also the incontrovertible fact that the Stone Roses’ bass and drums grooved in a way entirely unlike any other act 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 really didn’t: you could move to it in a way that you simply couldn’t to the majority of the songs that featured on the decks at the era’s indie discos. You somehow felt that the percussionist Alan “Reni” Wren and the bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been raised on music rather different to the standard alternative group set texts, which was completely right: Mani was a huge fan of the Byrds’ low-end maestro Chris Hillman but his main inspirations were “great northern soul and groove music”.

The fluidity of his playing was the secret sauce behind the Stone Roses’ eponymous first record: it’s him who drives the moment when I Am the Resurrection shifts from Motown stomp into loose-limbed funk, his octave-leaping riffs that put a spring in the step of Waterfall.

Sometimes the ingredient was quite obvious. On Fools Gold, the focal point of the song is not the vocal melody or Squire’s effect-laden playing, or even the breakbeat borrowed from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s writhing, relentless bass. When you recall She Bangs the Drums, the first thing that comes to thought is the bass line.

Indeed, in Mani’s opinion, when the Stone Roses stumbled artistically it was because they were insufficiently groovy. Fools Gold’s underwhelming follow-up One Love was lackluster, he proposed, because it “needed more groove, it’s a somewhat rigid”. He was a strong supporter of their oft-dismissed second album, Second Coming but thought its flaws might have been fixed by removing some of the layers of hard rock-influenced six-string work and “returning to the groove”.

He may well have had a point. Second Coming’s handful of standout tracks usually occur during the instances when Mounfield was truly given free rein – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the superb Begging You – while on its increasingly turgid songs, you can hear him metaphorically urging the band to increase the tempo. His performance on Tightrope is totally contrary to the listlessness of all other elements that’s happening on the song, while on Straight to the Man he’s clearly trying to add a some energy into what’s otherwise some nondescript country-rock – not a genre anyone would guess listeners was in a hurry to hear the Stone Roses give a try.

His efforts were in vain: 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 set at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s next gig with Primal Scream had an impressively energising effect on a band in a slump after the cool reception to 1994’s guitar-driven Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His sound became dubbier, heavier and increasingly fuzzy, but the swing that had given the Stone Roses a unique edge was still present – especially on the low-slung rhythm of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his skill to bring his bass work to the fore. His popping, mesmerising bass line is certainly the star turn on the brilliant 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his contribution on Kill All Hippies – like Swastika Eyes, a highlight of Xtrmntr, easily the best album Primal Scream had produced since Screamadelica – is magnificent.

Consistently an friendly, clubbable presence – the author John Robb once observed that the Stone Roses’ hauteur towards the press was invariably punctured if Mani “became more relaxed” – he took the stage at the Stone Roses’ 2012 comeback show at Manchester’s Heaton Park playing a customised bass that displayed the legend “Super-Yob”, the nickname of Slade’s outrageously styled and constantly grinning axeman Dave Hill. Said reformation did not lead to anything beyond a lengthy series of extremely lucrative gigs – two new singles released by the reformed four-piece served only to prove that any spark had been present in 1989 had turned out unattainable to recapture 18 years on – and Mani quietly declared his departure from music in 2021. He’d made his money and was now more concerned with angling, which additionally provided “a great reason to go to the pub”.

Maybe he thought he’d achieved plenty: he’d definitely left a mark. The Stone Roses were influential in a range of manners. Oasis undoubtedly observed their confident approach, while the 90s British music scene as a movement was informed by a desire to break the usual commercial constraints of indie rock and attract a wider general public, as the Roses had done. But their clearest direct effect was a sort of rhythmic change: in the wake of their initial success, you suddenly encountered many alternative acts who wanted to make their audiences dance. That was Mani’s artistic raison d’être. “It’s what the rhythm section are for, right?” he once stated. “That’s what they’re for.”