I'm a guitar player so I'm clearly biased, but I'm compelled to defend drummers whenever these kinds of jokes are made (I do have a stash of drummer and bass player jokes though). If your drummer is off, it doesn't matter how amazing the rest of the band is, it will sound horrible. You can throw a weak guitarist and bass player in with a tight drummer and it'll still come out kind of OK. I reckon anyway.

Oh and as far as bass players go.... Les Claypool for sure, but I've gotta throw in the late Cliff Burton!