ames Dean Bradfield - Manic Street Preachers

Back in the era of The Holy Bible, when Manic Street Preachers were doing their diet PiL impression and Bradfield was blasting out those Keith Levene-a-like riffs, it was really quite jarring to see Bradfield's unrestrained stage antics. Clinging to the same guitar hero moves he busted back in the dad-punk days of Gold against the Soul on a collection of songs about self harm and the Holocaust was uncomfortable viewing. To his credit, though, he's always worn his old school rock 'n roll heart on his sleeve, so I shouldn't really take the piss too much. He was always up front with his desire to be in huge selling rock band. And that needs complex moves to be conquered and learnt by heart.

X + O to throw his head right back whilst stomping his fila trainers, putting a little bit of strain on his already tight t-shirts (his "Faster" era Sailor suit had enough stretch to accommodate), making his man boobs all the more prominent.

X + O + Y + Z to perform special JDB kick move, preceded by a few backwards steps to the drum riser, and then a half spin on one leg accompanied with an off mic roar.

9. Rowland S. Howard - The Birthday Party

Both in The Birthday Party's promos and recorded live performances it's hard to take your eyes from the obscene gyrating crotch of the Stetson wearing bassist Tracy Pew or the pencil thin Nick Cave. But in terms of making moves with a guitar, Rowland S. Howard towered over fellow guitarist Mick Harvey. Check the live Dutch TV version of "Junkyard" in which Mick Harvey absentmindedly scratches his armpit as Howard struts back and forth like a fighting Rock cockerel. This little dance makes him look like the dodgy lost brother of those 2 blokes from the Fine Young Cannibals who did that odd cock-legged amphetamine hyper waddle on either side of Roland Gift. Howard's act was erratic, homicidal, emotionally unstable ward escapee who frantically slashes at the strings whilst holding the neck like the barrel of an automatic weapon. It worked: his habit of punctuating this with odd little twitching head nods made him the kind of person you'd never sit next to on the bus.

8. Jim Martin - Faith No More

Jim epitomises the legs akimbo adamantium Rock God stance, which is best seen when he chose to sport what looked suspiciously like my dad's camping shorts on stage. Regardless of where he plugged in his six string he always managed to get a breeze running through his mane (much like the breeze that Slash encountered on the hilltop in the "November Rain" video shoot), letting it billow out behind him, giving it an appearance of body, bounce and volume. He also refined one of rocks signature moves, the singular mosh (a much fuller move than Rowland Howard's nods), in which- at key points in a song- he gives one Herculean mosh, sending the hair flailing forward and back momentarily revealing his bald spot.

7. John Frusciante - Red Hot Chili Peppers

Pre-cataclysmic breakdown John was a tattooed homoerotic blur of fluid, wired funk. Post-cataclysmic breakdown John is a scarred, hairy blur of fluid, wired funk with an even greater inclination than before to pull fuck faces during what are becoming longer and longer solos. At times he can be somewhat monastic in his concentration; lost in music between interludes of body buckling rock abandon. He doesn't have a signature move as such (thankfully the Fagin style haircut doesn't seem to have moved him into the field of straightforward moshing), but it might be that "back from the brink" and "music saves" aura about his stage presence that elevates him above other guitarists. You can catch it when he and Flea are inches apart playing off one another or the boundless grin that he lets slip in between songs. I dunno, I think I might have a very heterosexual crush on him.

6. Munky - Korn

This guitarist has a similar problem to Howard- there's someone else onstage other than the singer vying for the crowds/cameras attention by posing onstage. Luckily for Munky, though, his competition is only Fieldy, the chipmunk-faced Korn bassist who believes he is a weightier, wiser reincarnation of B-Real (a quick listen to his 2002 solo LP Rock N Roll Gangster will prove he's not). Munky was one of the first of those pesky nu-metallers (alongside Meegs of Coal Chamber fame) to use the "check me out cos something's obviously not right with me" zombie stance. Here the guitarist stands dead still, facing forwards but with his eyes looking straight up showing as much of the white as possible. In practice it doesn't look very eerie or deviant; it's more like we've caught him mid orgasm or having something sharp yanked out of his foot. He also performs the standard metal "Gorilla crouch" move while riffing, in which he leans right over his guitar while bouncing on the spot shaking his head. Other guitarist Head just does the same as Munky, but honestly his hair isn't as cool.

5. Karl Hyde - Underworld

I'm not convinced Mr Hyde can even play the guitar, although he does an excellent job of looking like he's about to start playing it, cradling the neck while his other hand hovers expectantly over the strings. Any second now you think he's going to blast out a fat warm chord across the splatter of synth and pounding echoing beats but sadly not; he's off skipping, bouncing and sliding from foot to foot and all the while intercutting some of the worst E'd up raving seen since the early Prodigy promo videos. Their live DVD shows a smattering of him with a guitar but no playing, in fact the first 4 minutes of "Juanita/Kiteless" seems to be leading up to him doing something with it until he casually takes it off mid song like it was a fashion accessory that was getting in the way. Is he making a profound statement about the guitars place in live music? Is it just a prop? Is he playing it and I just can't hear it or see him doing it?

4. Malcolm Middleton - Arab Strap

There are those who would argue that you can't have a guitar god called Malcolm as it's a profoundly unrock name, which is intrinsically attached to cardigan wearing. He doesn't really have any proper moves either and that's why I really enjoy watching him play; he seems far more concerned with playing the guitar than copping a particular shtick and re-enacting what he saw At The Drive In or Iron Maiden do. I'm not qualified to comment on his technical level of ability, never seen him on the cover of Guitarist Monthly or seen his sponsored line of heart shaped picks, but he's one of my favourite guitar players of the moment. He plays like a less insecure Robin Guthrie strumming and picking out glistening melodies but leaving them stark and sharp instead of coating them in syrupy melting candy. Ten seconds later he's Jim Reid (not as dissonant as William), with sounds skidding through the feedback like a sparklers trail. Buy his solo LP 5:14 Fluoxytine Seagull Alcohol John Nicotine.

3. Tom Morello - Rage Against The Machine

Tom Morello wears his guitar too high to be really cool; he needs to loosen that strap. It's starting to remind me of the way George Formby played his banjo, he needs to be checking out Peter Hook for a few tips. I once naively suckered myself into believing that Morello had reinvented the guitar, seeing RATM doing "Bullet in the Head" live on UK TV was one of those key musical moments on the graph for me. Seeing him wringing out steel on stone grinding sounds next to Led Zep riffs next to Public Enemy squeals by running between speaker and pedal was so startlingly different to the shoegazers and grunge dudes. But two months ago I found myself getting so aurally offended by his squawky soloing breaks between the riffs and shouting that I actually transferred my RATM tracks to mp3 and edited the solos out of the songs using some software. Sounds a hell of a lot better.

2. Porl Thompson - The Cure

I never got into the habit of genuflecting at the mention of Johnny Marr, to me he was never the Eighties guitar hero he was written up to be (I like The Smiths, don't get me wrong). For me that place was reserved by Porl Thompson. Even now, many years on from my formative, most musically absorbent years, I still think of him in terms of being the pinnacle of man/guitar cool. The single promo for "A Night like This" is his defining moment (albeit aided by the magic of slo-mo) and burnt the image of the sweep of his arm as it descends to hit the strings and as it half rises up at an angle before striking again deeply into my impressionable brain. And this is all despite the fact he's dressed in a white Fred Perry t-shirt under a baggy suit jacket with the sleeves rolled up, white trainers and a big headband. It wouldn't be hard to slip him unnoticed into the line up of 80s-style pop garbage like Johnny Hates Jazz or Climie Fisher, and still he carries it off.

1. Dimebag Darrell - Pantera

You really can't mess with Dimebag (previously known under the more glamtastic moniker of Diamond) for silly guitar related stunts and foot on monitor style riffage eccentricity. You'd think that being partly responsible for the shame of Pantera's pre-1990 album covers and song titles would make him more inclined to take a backseat in the proceedings. You'd also be wrong. Running back and forth onstage with that big rock hair like a giant randy Rowlf (the Muppet pianist) he only knows how to do one thing. Rock you. I'm surprised he manages to play anything at all, never mind setting the pace for the repeated head through windscreen thrash of Pantera, he can barely keep his hands on the bloody thing long enough. If he's not soloing one handed on the fretboard, nodding with a cheesy grin to his own playing then he's giving the front row the horns/metal sign or pointing at people in the crowd with his tongue hanging out in between full-on moshing. Watch the "Mouth for War" promo for some fine undulating during the solo.