While pious Japanese celebrated the rites of spring by making the traditional round of Buddhist temples and the tombs of their ancestors, thousands of Japanese "lowteen" girls in braids, pony tails, hula shirts, black slacks and white sweaters celebrated in their own way: jamming Tokyo's Kyoritsu Theater to swoon and scream at the pelvic pulsations of guitar-twanging "rockabilly" idols. Said a dazed stagehand last week, trying to describe the massed sound of their screams: "Like an auto suddenly braked at 100 m.p.h."
When a singer really sends them, Japanese lowteens (13-to 16-year-olds) hurl colored paper streamers onstage, and many of...
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