Just in case anyone happens to run into this same problem, my round-about solution for taxonomy template query conflict:
- clone the main query
- NULL the query
- define new WP_Query
- re-instate cloned query
Tested and working in header.php
<?php
global $wp_query;
$temp_query = clone $wp_query;
global $post;
$temp_post = clone $post;
$wp_query = NULL;
$wp_query = new WP_Query( $args );
// THE LOOP
wp_reset_postdata();
$wp_query = clone $temp_query;
$post = clone $temp_post;
?>