How about Sense?
It’s quite tightly fitted, which might work well with Parkinson’s sturdy serifs.

Sans, shmans.
http://www.fontbureau.com/fonts/Houston/

hhp

My Jenson: Goodchild

"conflict of similarity"? But for that, Goodchild (which I still love) or Houston are good choices.

But see if these choices work for you...

http://tinyurl.com/coowehe
http://tinyurl.com/bmvl9gr

What does Rolling Stone magazine use for article body-text? 'Cuz they use Parkinson all over the place. I'm not trying to copy RS's identity per se, but it would be good to know how they solved this one.

I like Frutiger too. But all his sans-serifs, maybe apart from Vectora, are just so incredibly overused. So, since you like Avenir and Hrant likes Font Bureau – how about Apres? http://www.fontbureau.com/fonts/Apres/
Also available as Apres RE for small sizes on Screen.
http://www.webtype.com/font/apresre-family/

By the way, isn’t the serif you chose called Electra? And this version Parkinson Electra?

No, Parkinson Electra is something else (and a text font, bigtime); he means this:
http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/fontbureau/parkinson/
Hey, FB again... ;-)

hhp

What does Rolling Stone magazine use for article body-text?

Hmm. Recently ditched the few old Rolling Stones I had around. They used to use some cut of Kennerly in their body text. I think Joe Hutchinson was looking to replace that at one point, but I don’t recall if it ever happened. Been a while since I looked closely at a copy.

Actually, now that I think more about it, I believe they might have moved to Miller Text when they made the change to the smaller format. I always thought they should have tried out FB’s Eldorado.

What do you think of Sina for this?

And the example sans faces in the things i posted are Relay and (iirc) brandon grotesque. Relay edged out brandonGrot for being a touch less overstated. Is there one somewhere between relay and brandonGrot?

Oh I see, I clicked the first fontscom link. Thanks Hrant.

Sina seems very different to me, not sure. But I recently read a magazine set in Houston and it looked really good and was a pleasure to read.

If I had to pick between Relay and Brandon Grot for this I would definitely go for the Relay direction.

Until I finish my own, I'm looking at Parkinson / Soleil / Goodchild as a tripling. Turns out I don't think Goodchild and Parkinson are similar enough to conflict with one another. Goodchild might not have the "mood" I'm looking for, but it's unfussy, plainly communicative, and soooo clean, and I'm starting to suspect that I'm trying way, way too hard.

Not that I'm expecting anyone to be too interested in my lunatic ramblings.

Wishing Soleil had a double-decker /g/, and would make a true italic. Ah well. If wishes were horses...

"What do you think of Sina for this?"

It is the "this" I don't know about. What is it please?