One Mancunian bassist remembers another: Hook pays tribute to the ‘wonderful soul’ Gary Mounfield, the Stone Roses and Primal Scream musician who has died aged 63
I first met Mani when the Stone Roses’ manager asked me to produce them. We did Elephant Stone and they were lovely. Then as Manchester turned into Madchester I got to know them really well. I went to the great gig they did in Blackpool; I went to Spike Island. It was a fantastic time to be together and the Haçienda was the glue. There was no VIP area in the club, so punters would walk around and think: “There’s Mani!”
I had the Roses in my Suite 16 studio doing demos for what was going to be the second album, until they scrapped it. I got to know Mani and his wife, Imelda. We had a wild period. Then after our various bands stopped playing live we started Freebass, with three bass players: myself, Mani and Andy Rourke, who’d been in the Smiths. The band was ill-fated – too many chefs – and eventually we fell out badly after a row over a gig. Mani slagged me off but God bless him, the very next day he phoned me up and apologised. That was Mani. Once we were no longer working together, we became friends and after that every day spent with him was a total pleasure.
