Inspired by a posted vid of some dude with mad flute skillz over on Anna's blog, I was prompted to recall one of my favorite exhibitions of drumming ever - Andrea Vadrucci's Vadrum Meets Super Mario Brothers. I'm not sure where the guy is from (if I had to guess based on the name, I'd say Italy), but he's completely awesome. These videos go to show how musical the drum set can be, and this is probably one of the most compelling performances of musical drums as opposed to rhythm that I've ever seen or heard. Amazing.
Check out some of his others, where he takes on all comers:
Vadrum Meets the Barber of Seville
Vadrum Meets the William Tell Overture
And finally, fast becoming one of my favorites,
My inner drummer wants to be this guy when it grows up.
He misses badly on about 6 measures on the William Tell Overture when he tries to do para-rhythmics with the snare and hi-hat. It doesn't fit, it sounds like he's a half-step/beat behind musically; but he makes a nice recovery on it.
He has okay mechanics, but quick hands. I'm reminded of Akira Jimbo. If you haven't seen him, come to my pad, and I have an old VHS of him. The difference, Akira is sponsored by Yamaha, and does a lot of demos for drum triggers. It's pretty amazing. All in all, Vinnie Coliauta is the best (next to God).
He's still in time, he's just messing with the groove enough that it sounds really bad because the groove he's playing doesn't fit the music, as you pointed out. This is an excellent example of how a drummer can play technically in time and yet play out of the groove, and goes to show just how important finding the groove is to making a piece of music sound good.
And, as you also pointed out, it goes to show how making a good recovery from a bad choice of groove can salvage any song. ;)