Leaving behind their early hard rock roots, 42nd Street soon became in thrall to new wavers Joe Jackson, The Police and The Records. An early highlight was playing at Brisbane’s legendary Cloudland in front of 1500 people supporting Cold Chisel and Pop Rivet.

Original guitarist Ken Allen left the band in 1979 due to a different in musical direction and 42nd Street remained a three piece until 6 months later when Neil Coombe (ex-Bad Habit) was brought in.

The band had by this time released their debut single 'Work It Out' b/w 'Afraid of the Dark', recorded by the 3 piece line-up just weeks after Allen left.

Released on the independent label Virgo Seven, the singles received solid local radio play.

The band had recorded a possible follow-up with the songs 'No Money' and 'She's Not Real', which although receiving scattered FM radio play, never got past the demo tape stage.

The bands only other official release was a track entitled 'Mistaken Identity' which was written for the AM station 4IP compilation 'That's Queensland' in 1979.

In May 1981 the group quit their jobs and moved to Sydney with shows and work lined up only to have the gigs fall through and to be ignored by the agencies.

After a couple of months of slogging it out, marred with unflattering shows, fraying tempers and even a couple of band name changes - Young Hearts, The Boyfriends - the guys decide to call it quits, running up a tally of 2.5 years together and playing 159 shows and suffering an unnatural amount of bad luck.

42nd Street shared the stage with the likes of Cold Chisel, Mental As Anything, Flowers, Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons, Swanee and The Saints.

Back in Brisbane, Greg and Darren turned down offers to join Sydney-based bands The Lonely Hearts and The Innocents, instead forming the short lived power pop band The Obsessions with John Flade on guitar, before evolving into the now legendary Ups and Downs.