Yes, I must agree with Dave that a texture would be the most efficient way to do this.

So from least to most geometry you could....

1. start with a cylinder and use a texture + bump + displacement

2. start with a polygon helix and delete the inner faces and merge verts to create a silhoutte and then texture and bump

3. start with a polygon helix, pull off a curve, create the "nobbly circle" as dave calls it and then extrude that along the helical curve and then use the extrude revolve attribute to twist it. (although I prefer to extrude a poly plane and use the twist attribute as it is more predictable).

4. take 3 and make a nomal map on to 2 or 1