His melodic, grooving basslines were central to the breaking down of genre barriers that brought a generation of dance heads and indie kids together
How many musicians can say they made two great bands even better? Gary “Mani” Mounfield – who died yesterday aged 63 – was a rare breed in so many ways. With The Stone Roses and then Primal Scream, Mani’s bass playing was central to shaping British guitar music over the past 40 years.
With his grounding in “good northern soul and funk”, it was Mani, along with Roses drummer Alan “Reni” Wren, that brought a generation of dance heads and indie kids together: his melodic, grooving basslines were central to the baggy era’s E-inspired breaking down of genre barriers, the melding of dance and rock pioneered by The Stone Roses; with Primal Scream, Mani proved a musician able to not just turn his hand to dub, electronica, punk, and industrial, but leave his imprint on anything he played.
And then there was the man himself. A counterpoint to his more aloof bandmates, Mani was the epitome of the Mancunian working-class everyman. He kept the common touch: outgoing, approachable, roguish and, for a bass player, possessed with the charisma and aura of a frontman. Watch his bands live and he was often the centre of attention by dint of sheer personality; swinging his bass, mischievous like a school kid, always, always with the air of a man who loved what he did and never forgot how lucky he was to do it.
It was infectious: the outpouring of grief – from former band members to Liam Gallagher to Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham – is not just for his greatness on the bass. Mani, ever smiling, was a much-loved figure.
Here are six of Mani’s basslines to remember.
I Wanna Be Adored, The Stones Roses, 1989
The bassline that hooked a generation, the opening track of the Stone Roses’ game-changing eponymous debut album is lodged in the heads of old ravers and indie kids everywhere. With hints of the band’s earliest pre-fame gothic leanings, the Roses’ statement of intent began with Mani’s bass slowly creeping into view, evocative and seductive, before laying the canvas for a peak John Squire guitar swirl. When the song opened the band’s reformation concerts in 2012, Mani, the member who had always pushed for a reunion, played it like the cat that got the cream.
I Am The Resurrection, The Stone Roses 1989
Mani’s melodic touch underpinned so many of the Roses’ best moments: the lilting motif of “She Bangs the Drums”; the beautifully gentle rumble of “Sally Cinnamon”; his spine-tinglingly deft touch on “This is The One”. But the debut album’s closing epic is his most unforgettable: pure Manchester funk that wears its strutting nature lightly in the song’s indelible Motown-y intro (if you’ve been to an indie disco in the past 35 years, you’ll know) to how it drives forward the marathon, euphoric four-minute outro.
Fools Gold, The Stones Roses, 1989
By November 1989, the sound of Madchester had gone overground, taking over Top of the Pops as both the Roses and Happy Mondays, improbably, performed on the same episode, unheard of in indie circles at the time. In hindsight, Fool’s Gold was the peak of everything: the band, the movement, and Mani’s creativity. Inspired by Young MC’s funky hip hop classic “Know How”, it melds everything great about the Roses – the rhythmic shuffle of drummer Reni, Squire’s wah pedal inventiveness – but its magnetic power lies in Mani’s swaggering liquid bassline, both instantly memorable and still somehow enigmatic.
Kowalski, Primal Scream, 1997
After The Stone Roses’ catastrophic implosion at Reading Festival in 1996, Mani joined Primal Scream – he said the only other band he’d have played with was Beastie Boys – just as Bobby Gillespie and co embarked on a golden period of eclectic metamorphism. But it was Mani’s impetus, enthusiasm and skill that made it possible. The first single Mani played on after joining, “Kowalski” was a strange, agitated, cinematic speed-freak funk of a track, pushed onward by Mani’s incessant, tightly wound, ominous bass. Nobody else could have played it better.
Swastika Eyes, Primal Scream, 1999
The sound of pre-millennial tension, the lead single from Primal Scream’s XTRMNTR album, captured the anxiety of the coming new century with an epic industrial electronic blowout that still sounds fantastic. At the heart of the song is Mani’s bass, a weirdly entrancing fixture in the verses but a force in the punishing mid-song all-out-rave breakdown, and its similarly monumental finale.
Shoot Speed/Kill Light, Primal Scream, 2000
Released in January 2000, XTRMNTR was the first great album of the 21st century, where social angst met with a host of antagonistic rock dance noisescapes. The definition of understanding the assignment, Mani was arguably at his peak right here: go through the tracks and among the barrage of sounds the one constant is Mani’s brilliance. You could easily choose highlights in his aggressively funky distorted bass in the industrial-soul of “Kill All Hippies” or the grimy robotic menace of “Exterminator”, but closing track “Shoot Speed/Kill Light” gets the nod: among the thrilling Krautrock soundscape, Mani’s propulsive bass gives the song its exhilarating momentum.
