Perfect Manages to Find Some Good in the Flaws of Life

Perfect, a local guitar-pop outfit that played at the Dragonfly on Friday night, is a band with a past though it hasn’t yet released a full-length album. Its singer and guitarist is Tommy Stinson, who, at the tender age of 12, joined his older brother as a key member of the revolutionary post-punk band, the Minneapolis-based Replacements. (Stinson’s first L.A. band, Bash & Pop, broke up after a 1993 release.)

Informal as a basement party, infused with the raucous high energy of the Replacements’ early years, the band highlighted the ironic quality of its name: Perfect is all about embracing flaws.

Looking pixieish in a dress and makeup thanks to a lost bet during a card game, Stinson delivered three-minute wonders from Perfect’s debut EP, “When Squirrels Play Chicken,” which was blessed with a 3 1/2-star review in Rolling Stone.

After belting out high-rollick paeans to imperfection such as “Makes Me Happy” and the wry ballad “Miss Self-Esteem” (about a perpetually dissatisfied girlfriend), the band made it clear that, while it won’t be setting rock history books afire, it does have sloppy energy and impetuous good humor to spare. The finale featured a slurred, debauched version of Elton John’s “Crocodile Rock” and each member swapped instruments--guitarist Marc Solomon traded with bassist Robert Cooper and Stinson took out his wicked fury on Gersh’s drum set.

Stinson is now 30, but his maturity wasn’t obvious from the impish gleam in his eye and the scruffy vibe of this club-perfect set.