Serialism in rock?

There are lots of rock pieces without a tonal centre but the only piece I know that uses the 12-tone method is Erk Gah by Henry Cow. I suppose a method in which all melodies are derived from a single sequence of all 12 notes and thus strictly notated, doesn't lend itself naturally to rock, even progressive rock. I think U-totem may have used some 12-tone techniques.

I don't see the big deal. As Dean was saying, I don't think I could tell if someone was using that 12 tone method. Lots of Avant Rock is atonal. Any time you use a symmetrical scale (e.g. whole/half diminished, 9 note augmented), you either don't have a root note or you have lots and lots of root notes to a point where it doesn't really matter anymore what you call a root note. Twelve tones are of course all the notes available and what is referred to as the chromatic scale, and just another very extreme version of a symmetrical scale, so I'm really not sure I would be able to tell the difference between some using the 12 tone method versus any other application of the chromatic scale. Someone should do some fact checking because I thought it was just a myth that the 12 tone method required all the notes be played before repeating, but I've been wrong before.

Edited by Svetonio - September 27 2015 at 23:15

Even punks experimented with serialism...