REAL GONE

Where Angels Play

Stone Roses and Primal Scream bassist and positive force Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield left us on November 20.

Baggy trousered philanthropist: funk brother Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield made The Stone Roses swing.

Ian Tilton

“I BROUGHT THE funk to the party,” Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield said of his bass playing role in The Stone Roses. “Someone had to introduce those indie kids to George Clinton and Bootsy Collins.”

Indeed, as one quarter of the group, the ever-approachable Mounfield helped spearhead the ’90s indie dance explosion; the group’s 1989 debut The Stone Roses and 1990 first Top 10 single Fools Gold fused Byrdsian jangle with warehouse party vibes, and broke down the walls between rock and club culture.

Mounfield was born on November 16, 1962, in Crumpsall, north Manchester to an Irish Catholic family. By the time he left college at 16, he was strumming guitar along to records by The Clash and The Jam. He first befriended singer Ian Brown through the scooter scene, and played rhythm guitar and then bass with guitarist John Squire in the Fireside Chaps. “I was heavily into Northern soul, funk and rare groove so the bass suited me better,” he told me. “I wanted to be James Jamerson.” Stints in bands with Inspiral Carpets’ organist Clint Boon and others followed before he joined The Stone Roses, making his live debut on November 13, 1987, in front of a 1,000-strong audience at Manchester’s International 1 club.

“I wanted to be James Jamerson.”

MANI

Mani called the classic line-up of Brown, Squire and drummer Alan ‘Reni’ Wren “my gang. We were inseparable.” A year later they were in London’s Battery studio recording their extraordinary debut with producer John Leckie. Mixing melody and grooves, the album hit Number 19 on release in May 1989, but in time would be one of the defining, most influential albums of its era. Rather than tour they staged events, which culminated in May 1990’s massive Spike Island event in Widnes. Seemingly blinded by their own self-confidence, four years passed before follow-up album Second Coming arrived. Its Led Zeppelin-styled heavy riffing was out of step with an emerging Britpop, in part built upon the sounds and attitude of the Roses’ debut LP. Oasis – Stone Roses fans themselves – had filled the void.

Squire and Wren had already jumped ship before a disastrous appearance at the 1996 Reading Festival, after which the Roses split. In 1997, Mani joined Primal Scream, his dub-inspired bass lines, warmth and enthusiasm lifting that year’s Vanishing Point and 2000’s XTRMNTR. In 2011 he rejoined the re-formed Roses – “my first love, I had to,” he said. After deliriously received tours, they split for a second time in 2017.